Ethical Hacking as Effective Coping of Criminal Hacking - Essay Example

Ethical Hacking – Part I Table of Contents Table of Contents Introduction 2 Literature Review 3 Analysis 5 Works Cited 8 Introduction Since its beginning in the year 1996 until today, the internet has been successful in establishing an enormous network of millions of computers across the seven continents. In addition, the internet has now not remained a single network (Erickson, pp. 23-25); however, has now become a platform of gathering different networks that allow individual computers to connect with them in a number of ways such as through dial-ups, gateways, ISPs, etc. In other words, only a computer and network connection are the two major requisites for entering into the world of internet that has enabled billions of individuals to connect with each other as individuals, as well as organizations globally. However, while the internet has been a blessing to humankind, along with its bounties and huge number of facilities, it has brought a few risks as well. Studies (Erickson, pp. 49-56) have indicated that stealing of valuable information, corruption, and vanishing of computer systems are some of the major risks associated with the utilization of internet. Although in the past, it was an understanding that information locked in a file cabinet is more vulnerable than the existence of that information in electronic mode. However, things have changed now, and people are again relying on file cabinets to keep their records due to huge amount of issues related to information systems security on the internet. In this regard, internet has resulted in commencement of various beneficial things such as electronic commerce, e-mail, e-advertisement, and e-education; however, along with such technological advancements, there is one major issue among the various IS security related issues; hacking (McClure & Shah, pp. 20-26). In other words, a huge number of issues and threats exist in the world of information systems; however, hacking is one of the major issues that have been deteriorating the security of information security systems, which will be the focus of this report in detail. Literature Review Analysis of different sources (Harris & Ness, pp. 49-63) has indicated that until today, the computer industry is using the term of hacking or hacker for dual purposes. In the beginning, hacker would be an individual who was interested in learning new things about the computer systems, and was keen to discover new capabilities of the computer networks unlike usual users of the computers who were interested in learning only standard usage of the computers. In other words, enthusiastic programmers were hackers, and as the time passed, skillful programmers continued to become the part of a new world; hacking that indicated a number of users interested in crafting new programs or revising existing programs to reduce its complexity (Harris & Ness, pp. 48-53). However, hacking did not remain limited to such scope and gradually; it involved various computer intrusions for fun purpose. Initially, hacking remained a funny thing to do where hackers would be making practical jokes on their friends and colleagues. However, such interruptions did not stay harmless for long, and hacking started to appear on the news due to higher extent of damage that it began to causing on the internet. Unfortunately, the media did not employ the proper term of computer criminal for such actions, and the term hacking/hacker was considered preferable to define such individuals involved in breaking computers for various purposes (Erickson, pp. 67-70). In this regard, hacking became a term to compliment such individuals, and that is one of the major reasons of its propagation. However, today, hacking or a hacker indicates the individuals who are on the darker side of computer security profession. In addition, few resources have indicated usage of the term ‘intruder’ instead of hacker for such individuals who result in harmful outcomes due to their computer skills and capabilities. In terms of defining the hacking, resources (Kurtz & Scambray, pp. 40-55) have indicated different types of attacks that fall under the category of hacking, and thus, it is imperative to discuss such types to understand the definition of hacking in a detailed manner. In specific, ‘non-technical attack’ is the first type of hacking attacks that focus on humans rather than computers to carry out a hacking attack on some individual or organization. In other words, non-technical attacks (McClure & Shah, pp. 35-41) are more associated with the social engineering aspect of hacking that includes exploitation of human’s trusting nature to acquire valuable information for malevolent intentions. Besides non-technical attacks, ‘network infrastructure attacks’ is the most common form of hacking attacks that use the internet to enter into any network around the world, and in which, criminal hackers or intruders identify weaknesses in a network, flood it with enormous requests, and subsequently, attacking the network by installing their own network analyzer. Furthermore, ‘operating system attacks’ (McClure & Shah, pp. 59-64) stand in the line of hacking attacks as the favorite form of hacking due to enormous number of weaknesses existing in every operating system of a computer that allow the hackers to break in and carry out their malevolent tasks. In this form of hacking, Windows and Linux are the most common victims due to wide number of their users around the globe. The detailed methodology of such attack will be part of the discussion in second part of the report. Lastly, ‘application attacks’ (Kurtz & Scambray, pp. 77-81) are becoming common these days, as media announces attacks on different organizations in the form of attack on their email software or other web applications that result in the loss of invaluable data and information. In specific, HTTP and SMTP applications are the most common ones due to their higher vulnerability against viruses, Trojans, spyware, etc. In the definition part, the last one is ‘Ethical Hacking’ (Harris & Ness, pp. 19-22) that also has the term of hacking; however, indicates individuals that work against the criminal hackers, and they are on the brighter side of the hacking world. In specific, to cope up with criminal hackers, a huge number of organizations are now hiring ethical hackers to deal with the criminal hackers, and it has been an observation that it has resulted in a boom in the demand of ethical hackers globally. Analysis Personally, it is an observation that internet has resulted in a huge explosion that has inclined every organization to shift its information on the internet for easy access. This internet revolution has resulted in huge number of facilities; however, at the same time, it has created a new group of individuals who are now becoming criminals on the internet in the form of criminal hackers. Although governments and organizations are excited to be a part of this global village, however, there exists a form of fear in every individual and organization due to hacking. Individuals are afraid that someone will hack into their account and will replace their picture with some pornographic content. In addition, organizations are afraid that a hacker will take their invaluable information, such as data of credit card numbers of their customers that may cost them thousands of dollars. With such concerns, hacking has become one of the major priorities of organizations around the globe, as hacking is affecting the internet, home networks, organizations, and individual users in almost every continent of the world. In this regard, it has now become very important that there should be a collective effort to counter-attack such hackers, and analysis has indicated that ethical hacking is one of the effective solutions that are in the process of eliminating criminal hackers from the internet, or at least preventing adverse outcomes due to their attacks. It is anticipation that second part of the report will help the readers in comprehensive understanding of this issue, and will facilitate in effective coping of the matter. Works Cited Erickson, Jon. Hacking. No Starch Press, 2003. Harris, Shon and Ness, Jonathan. Gray Hat Hacking. McGraw-Hill Professional, 2008. Kurtz, George and Scambray, Joel. Hacking Exposed 6. McGraw-Hill Professional, 2009. McClure, Stuart and Shah, Saumil. Web Hacking. Addison-Wesley, 2003. Read More