ETHICAL HACKINGA LICENCE TO HACK

B. TECH- III YR L. D. COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

INTRODUCTION Ethical hacking- also known as penetration

testing or intrusion testing or red teaming has become a major concern for businesses and governments.

Companies are worried about the possibility of being “hacked” and potential customers are worried about maintaining control of personal information.

Necessity of computer security professionals to break into the systems of the organization.

Ethical hackers employ the same tools and techniques as the intruders.

They neither damage the target systems nor steal information.

The tool is not an automated hacker program rather it is an audit that both identifies the vulnerabilities of a system and provide advice on how to eliminate them.

INTRODUCTION

Who are ethical hackersThe skills ethical hackers should posses

They must be completely trustworthy.

Should have very strong programming and computer networking skills and have been in networking field for several years.

Should have more patience.

Continuous updating of the knowledge on computer and network security is required.

They should know the techniques of the criminals, how their activities might be detected and how to stop them.

Who are ethical hackers

Types Of Hacker

Black Hat Hacker A black hat hackers or crackers

are individuals with extraordinary computing skills, resorting to malicious or destructive activities. That is black hat hackers use their knowledge and skill for their own personal gains probably by hurting others.

Cont…..

White Hat Hacker White hat hackers are those

individuals professing hacker skills and using them for defensive purposes. This means that the white hat hackers use their knowledge and skill for the good of others and for the common good.

Cont…..

Grey Hat Hacker These are individuals who work both

offensively and defensively at various times. We cannot predict their behaviour. Sometimes they use their skills for the common good while in some other times he uses them for their personal gains.

Need for the ethical hacking

Your overall goals as an ethical hacker should be as follows:

Hack your systems in a nondestructive fashion.

Enumerate vulnerabilities and, if necessary, prove to upper management that vulnerabilities exist.

Cont…..

Apply results to remove vulnerabilities and better secure your systems.

Some Attacks

Nontechnical attacks

Network-infrastructure attacks

Operating-system attacks

Application attacks

AREAS TO BE TESTED

Application servers

Firewalls and security devices

Network security

Wireless security

Anatomy of an attack

Gathering Data – attacker gathers information; can include social engineering.

Scanning – searches for open ports (port scan) probes target for vulnerabilities.

Gaining access – attacker exploits vulnerabilities to get inside system; used for spoofing IP.

Cont.....

Maintaining access – creates backdoor through use of Trojans; once attacker gains access makes sure he/she can get back in.

Covering tracks – deletes files, hides files, and erases log files. So that attacker cannot be detected or penalized.

Ethical Hacking Tools

Ethical hackers utilize and have developed variety of tools to intrude into different kinds of systems and to evaluate the security levels. The nature of these tools differ widely. Here we describe some of the widely used tools in ethical hacking.

Ethical Hacking Tools

Samspade

Ethical Hacking Tools

Email Tracker

Ethical Hacking Tools

Visual route

Some other important tools

War Dialing

Pingers

Super Scan

Nmap etc…

Information Security Goals

Improve IS awareness. Assess risk. Mitigate risk immediately. Assist in the decision making process. Conduct drills on emergency response

procedures.

Conclusions Never underestimate the attacker or

overestimate our existing posture. A company may be target not just for its

information but potentially for its various transactions.

To protect against an attack, understanding where the systems are vulnerable is necessary.

Ethical hacking helps companies first comprehend their risk and then, manage them.

Always security professionals are one step behind the hackers and crackers.

Plan for the unplanned attacks. The role of ethical hacking in security

is to provide customers with awareness of how they could be attacked and why they are targeted.

“Security though a pain”, is necessary.

Conclusions

At present, security on the Internet is very poor and ethical hacking can be one of the most effective ways to fix serious security problems like cyber crime.

The information entrusted to the companies is required to be protected against all kinds of attacks by crackers, which makes their future promising.

FUTURE OF ETHICAL HACKING

References

1.www.javvin.com2.www.computerworld.com3.www.research.ibm.com/journals4.www.howstuffworks.com5.www.google.com6.www.seminartopics.com

Queries?