When you think of hacking, you probably picture someone rapidly typing away at a computer, trying to infiltrate the government (I know, so cool). But hacking isn’t always something illegal. Many people are hackers for a living. Some are even employed by the government. This is known as ethical hacking.
What is Ethical Hacking?
Some ethical hackers use their skills to prevent security breaches from those pesky government-infiltrating hackers. They identify potential weak areas in a website or database’s security system, and fix them so that no one with bad intentions can get in. This is extremely important because if anyone else found these weak points, they could steal sensitive or valuable information. Ethical hackers can also detect if someone has already broken into the system. They find when and where the breach happened, and try to track down who it was. This is also very important, as that information could be used to steal someone’s identity, or even worse. Without ethical hackers, many of these weaknesses could be overlooked, or even outright ignored.
Types of Hackers
Ethical hackers are known as white hat hackers. They only hack with good intentions. Black hat hackers are the usual government-infiltrating ones that hack to steal private information from companies or databases. Grey hat hackers are somewhere in between. They hack for fun or to point out security risks to companies without fixing them. They might offer to fix them if the company or organization is willing to pay them.