Intrusion Prevention - Essay Example

When the term hacker came into existence and the way media portrayed a hacker’s image, many individuals who thought that the media’s definition of hacking is cool and trendy, started using their abilities in illegal ways. Later on when companies and individual started facing issues caused due to the hackers who were a part of the dark side of hacking, many individuals who were previously involved in illegal and unethical hacking started providing services as ethical hackers. Their task was to identify various security vulnerabilities that could be manipulated by illegal hackers and they even started providing solutions for these security concerns.

This method of solving security issues have existed over a very long period of time, this method has ended up being one of the best ways to solve a user’s security issues but on the other hand users are even concerned about the legitimacy of such security providers. Body There are several advantages associated with hiring hackers for the protection of user’s system, these hackers might have previously indulged in activities recognized as unethical hacking, but today, they are using their expertise for legitimate purposes.

A hacker is beneficial for securing computer systems because they have been a part of the hacking business and thus their expertise of hacking are much more advanced than those who haven’t been a part of the illegal hacking side. Individuals can learn the basic concepts and technicalities of hacking from various resources but they cannot develop their own techniques nor can they have experience of all the techniques available. Only a genuine hacker has these capabilities and he/she uses various techniques together or in isolation for hacking purposes.

Hackers who are involved in the legitimate business of providing security through their hacking skills are recognized as White hat hackers; they keep themselves updated with day to day threats and treat this as their full time job (Teare, 2006, p.104). Thus they own the appropriate amount of skills, abilities, and knowledge required to conduct legal hacking. Hiring a hacker for security purposes can obviously have various negative consequences. Trust is a major factor that comes into scrutiny when a hacker is hired to secure a premise.

This is similar to hiring a convicted burglar for the security of your own home. The most important aspect of any business is the customer and other stakeholders of the business. Attaching a negative element to a business such as hiring a convicted hacker for security purposes may ruin the image of the business and the concerns of the stakeholders are destined to increase. One of the major concerns of hiring a white hat hacker, who previously used to be a black hat hacker, is the issue of privacy of personal information of the customers and the suppliers (Wilhelm, 2010, p.15). If by mistake a company hires a black hat security consul