It is the year 2020, today if someone asks you to imagine your life without the computer, mobile phones, and the internet, you for sure would consider it a joke and laugh! The 21st century is continuously evolving into a tech-savvy and tech-dependent world. One can say that we are living in a world full of wires!
But as the saying goes, “excess of anything can turn out to be harmful”. People have found ways to “hack” into others’ devices and get access to others’ personal information often to be misused. It’s normal to hear these days that someone’s social media account was hacked, a website was hacked, and so on.
What is Hacking?
The big question which comes up here is, WHAT IS HACKING?
In simple terms, hacking is an attempt to access a device in an unauthorized manner often to exploit a computer system or a private network inside the computer.
Unauthorized access to control a computer network security system for illicit purposes is hacking.
For someone to hack into a computer, s/he needs to be intelligent and highly skilled in computers. We are talking about the top-notch computer geeks here! In reality, breaking into a security system requires more skills, efforts, and expertise than what is needed to create one.
How would you recognize a hacked device?
To know if your device is hacked, you need to look for certain symptoms and signs. Fake antivirus warning messages, unwanted browser toolbar, redirection to strange websites, random app pop-ups, ransomware messages, etc are some common signs of a device being hacked. This calls for you to increase your device security.
Who are Hackers?
The intelligent, computer geeks we spoke about above are called HACKERS. These people have a keen interest in understanding and diving deep into the specifics of the computer world to maximize and enhance their capacity. Just like possibly every other thing on Earth, even hackers are of two kinds.
The people who hack into a system with permission and no ulterior motives are called ethical hackers or white-hat hackers, the process is called ethical hacking and those who do it without permission, illegally are called black-hat hackers.
We will speak about them in detail a little later.
Hackers have a long history to date back to. Earlier, when computers were newly invented, hackers were seen as tech-enthusiasts who helped in the development of computers. With the advent of personal computers (PCs), illegal hacking increased. Hackers were stereotyped and often imprisoned. They did not have the current fame back in the day because security was seen more as an internal aspect that the company would deal with privately.
Infamous Black-Hat Hackers
Black hat hackers are those who hack into a system to take control of the systems for personal gains. These are the people who can destroy, steal, or take control of the system. They find loopholes and weaknesses in the systems and their work is done. They have the power to steal identities and even let lose harmful viruses. They have extensive knowledge of the computer world and know how to cleverly bypass the security protocols.
Malware, a method used to get access to others’ systems is also a brainchild of theirs’s. Some black-hat hackers are also involved in protests, while some do it just for fun! Not only do they steal the data illegally but also modify or destroy it, according to their plans. They use smart tactics like lottery offers etc to meet their target goals. Beware when the next time you get such a message or mail!
In the early days, hackers were heavily punished and more than often imprisoned. People were scared of the term “HACKER”. The punishments were so severe that when black-hat hackers were paid money to become ethical hackers and hack with permission, they took a lot of time to consider it!
White-Hat Hackers and Ethical Hacking
Let’s consider a very important term that we just mentioned, ETHICAL HACKING. It is defined as the resource and system that contributes to developing, editing, and enhancing various levels of security networks for the customer’s systems. This kind of hacking is the reason behind the better quality of infrastructure and strengthens the security system of various devices and apps. White-hat hackers indulge in ethical hacking.
A common and favored process, ethical hacking is used to analyse the threats to the security systems and programs of an organization. It is done with permission.
Companies employ these hackers to go through their systems and find loopholes so that they can be fixed on time. When working, an ethical hacker plays the role of a security expert and tries to detect risks and threats. The basics that they deal with are threats and vulnerabilities.
Ethical hacking is gaining a lot of fame and comes handy to fight against unlawful practices of breaching systems and to take precautionary actions against hackers. Ethical hackers play an important role in safeguarding the computer world.
Speaking about ethical/white-hat hackers, one needs to consider bug bounty hunters as well. Bug bounty hunters are ethical hackers who look for loopholes in multi-million dollar online businesses and are rewarded by them when they report one successfully. It is their hobby to find security issues or bugs in an online establishment responsibly and disclose it to the respective company.
Grey-Hat Hackers
In the world of hacking, certain grey-hat hackers exist as well. They are curious by nature and have just enough knowledge about computer language skills to enable them to hack a system to locate potential loopholes in the network security systems.
Why are Ethical Hackers important?
Large businesses like Apple, Facebook, etc have great security teams in place, yet they miss out on certain loopholes which can lead to the company’s exploitation. Some common threats faced by them include but are not limited to, employee errors- wherein the employees make certain mistakes which causes harm to the entire system; ransomware attacks; DDoS Attacks -DDoS stands for distributed denial of service, an attack designed to flood a victim’s network resources so they cannot process legitimate traffic on their network, etc.
What are Bug Bounty Programs?
To safeguard themselves from such threats, companies launch bug bounty programs. Bug-bounty programs, also known as vulnerability response programs (VRPs), are initiatives which reward individuals for discovering and reporting software bugs.
Bug bounty programs are often initiated to supplement internal code audits, as part of an organization’s vulnerability management strategy.
Often hackers are rewarded in millions when they find a loophole or vulnerability. Western Union, a money transfer company, pays $100-$5000 per bug. The US Security Hub, Pentagon awarded bug bounty hunters about $150,000 for finding around 138 vulnerabilities in their system. This is a perfect example of how no system is perfectly secured and the need for bug bounty hunters and ethical hackers increases even more. The reward paid to these people is much less than what a company might have to face if actual damage takes place. Precaution is always better than cure.
Why Ethical Hacking is an underrated job?
But most companies do not take their cyber securities seriously. They find it difficult to accept the fact that unknown hackers can help them save a ton of money by identifying loopholes in their systems. Since most hackers and bug bounty hunters work as freelancers, companies see them as a threat to their security and as someone who can leak their internal secrets. An issue of confidentiality comes up.
The stereotype and impression of hackers have often played a negative role in their development.
This is often a result of negative media coverage and negative publicity. Companies often tend to ignore their need owing to the reputation of hackers in general and often end up losing a lot of money and data.
Awareness regarding the benefits of ethical hacking is highly needed in the current time.
Computers are nowhere to go and will evolve and develop even more in the coming years, and so will the security threats. An increase in the employment of hackers is bound to be noticed. I would like to leave you here by saying, it is humans who create these sorts of threats, not computers, and it requires a skilled human to resolve them as well.
Ending Notes
Thank you for investing your time in reading this article. Checkout all the sources for this article below -
- Meet Bengaluru’s bug bounty hunters
- What is Hacking?
- Top Cybersecurity Threats Companies Face
- Bug Bounty Programs Offering Big Bucks
- Why Companies Like Google And Facebook Pay Hackers Millions
