Things to keep in mind before you begin your journey as an ethical hacker

The term hacker doesn’t create a good image in our minds, especially with the rising instances of cybercrimes and data breaches across the globe. But the shady image that hackers have got in recent years is just one side of the story. There are primarily three kinds of hackers- Blackhat(actual cyber criminals), Greyhat(people who hack for fun), and Whitehat( ethical hackers). With the instances of cybercrimes rising today, enterprises require out-of-the-box ideas to be one step of such potential data breaches. This where ethical hacking shines. It sure is an exciting career option that has a lot of growth potential, however, before you begin your career as an ethical hacker you should keep certain things in mind. Here we have discussed everything you need to know before pursuing a career as an ethical hacker.

This is carried out by cybersecurity experts that are hired by enterprises to deliberately break through the enterprise systems. They hold specialisation in penetration testing and can identify ways to break through a system. This helps businesses in determining and correcting certain vulnerabilities before actual hackers take advantage of such situations. The fact that this type of hacking by a professional is called ethical is because they are hired by the company to
keep the infrastructure secure.

There is no set path to becoming an ethical hacker. For some, it may start quite early on as a necessity. Sometimes organisations task software engineers with detecting loopholes in the current infrastructure. Sometimes the state of IT security would be such that professionals would try to find the issues to make the processes much efficient. Usually, a career in ethical hacking does not require a professional degree. However, if you have one it will sure increase your job prospects. All that said, ethical hacking is all about practical knowledge that you gain with experience. For a professional to be able to break through something should know how to develop it first. The primary skill to become an ethical hacker is to have a great understanding of how the software works. Also, it is always best to decide the category you would like to focus on. Familiarity with popular programming languages such as Python, javaScript is also a must.

Some popular tools used by ethical hackers include Acunetix, Burp Suite Pro, John the Ripper, Kismet, Nessus, Wireshark, etc. Irrespective of which tools you are using for ethical hacking, it will always involve a great deal of learning, experimentation, and testing.