Ethical Hacking: An Introduction

The explosive growth of the Internet has brought many good things: electronic commerce, easy access to vast stores of reference material, collaborative computing, e-mail, and new avenues for advertising and information distribution, to name a few. As with most technological advances, there is also a dark side: criminal hackers. Governments, companies, and private citizens around the world are anxious to be a part of this revolution, but they are afraid that some hacker will break into their Web server and replace their logo with pornography, read their e-mail, steal their credit card number or implant software that will secretly transmit their data to the open Internet. These concerns and others gave birth to a new security paradigm called ‘Ethical Hacking’. ‘Ethical Hacking’ involves getting one’s own system hacked by independent computer security professionals (Internal or External) to assess its security strength. ‘Ethical Hackers’ would employ the same tools and techniques as the intruders would, not to damage the system or steal information. Instead, they evaluate the target systems’ security and report the vulnerabilities they found to their owners and also assist in fixing such vulnerabilities. Many organizations have realized that ‘Ethical hacking’ is one of the best ways to evaluate the intruder threat. Ethical hacking is becoming a preferred approach among security-intensive businesses. Such as financial services, retailing companies and entities handing sensitive customer data or personal medical records etc. Ethical hacking forms a part of the overall information security strategy for many proactive organizations. This book presents a holistic view of this emerging concept, focusing on security threats, types and issues of ‘Ethical Hacking’ suitable for management as well as technical readers.