If you are looking for examples of ethical hacking then read on!
It’s funny because the concept of carrying out what is a malicious attack ethically has certainly evolved people’s understanding on the subject of hacking. People tend to immediately associate this with negative actions and intentions because they only know the negative effects. In short, most will believe there can be little or no positive application for it, but of course, that is just not true.
When used for good, it’s good!
When used as a means to improve an individual or a company’s online defenses, we find this “malicious act” rather beneficial. The practice of breaking into, or bypassing an online system or network to expose its flaws for further improvement is entirely ethical (and you can make a nice living doing it too.)
Examples of ethical hacking include exploiting or exposing a website to discover their weak points. Then report your findings and let the appropriate person fix those vulnerabilities. Then in the future, should they come under attack, they will be that bit safer. You are preparing them for any real threat of attack because you are eliminating the areas which could be exploited against them.
There are a lot of examples of ethical hacking, including one which happened in the early days of computers. Back then, the United States Air Force used it to conduct a security evaluation of an operating system. In doing so, they were able to discover flaws like vulnerable hardware, software, and procedural security. They determined that even with a relatively low level of effort, their security can be bypassed and the intruder would get away with precious information. Thanks to ethical hacking, they were able to stop such an incident from happening. The people who carried out this task treated the situation as if they were the enemy, doing all they could to break into the system. This way, they could determine exactly how secure their system was. This is perhaps one of the best examples of ethical hacking because they were sanctioned by the people who were responsible for the creation of the said online system. They recognized the need for such action because they know that there are a lot of people capable of doing the same thing or inflicting the same harm to their system.
From all the examples of ethical hacking, perhaps you can relate to the practices of known Operating Systems being used today. Makers of these Operating Systems perform their ethical hacks to their systems before actually launching their products to the public. This is to prevent possible attacks that could be perpetrated by hackers. This is somehow a means of quality control during the system’s development phase, to make sure that all the weaknesses of their Operating Systems are covered since it will be marketed for public use. Ethical hacking is a very useful approach to defending your precious online systems. By tapping into the abilities and potential of white hat hackers, you can take on and prevent damages caused by the real hackers.
