Bharat Bhise HNA, a security consultant has been speaking for many years now about the great importance that we have in the cybersecurity industry for more hackers. Now, this may come as something of a surprise to you but there are more types of hackers in this world than those who you may be imagining. On the one hand, you have hackers who seek to steal information and data by breaching networks and taking what they want, on the other hand, you have hackers who have studied hard, learned their craft and who are absolutely critical for the cybersecurity industry.
These people are called ethical hackers and they are paid by the cybersecurity industry to ensure that their products are of the very highest level. Just as you may think these people are fully permitted to hack into systems and they make sure that proper testing of the security software can be done. This helps drastically because the software companies often find that as soon as they release new security software, hackers are ready to pounce and expose holes or flaws which they believe that they have found in their systems. In using ethical hackers the software company can identify these gaps before the product goes out to market.
If you want to become an ethical hacker you will have to study a course in it first, and these are the skills that you will need to have in order to be successful in this role.
1. Confidentiality
Being an ethical hacker is like someone being an ethical bank robber, they have all the skills to do the job but they work in the side of the bank to help them avoid a robbery happening in the future. The big difference here is that although you have all of the skills and the entry codes, you can’t actually do something illegal. This is why in order to become an ethical hacker you must be able to ensure confidentiality in everything that you do. Just becasue you know how to penetrate a system, it doesn’t mean that you can.
2. Passion
Without a real passion for programming, you will not have what it takes to be successful in this job role. The reason for this is very simple, you have to have the same desire to break a system as a criminal hacker would. They wouldn’t give up after a couple of tries, they would reach inside for all of their programming knowledge and they would find the way to get it done. You have to display the same amount of passion albeit with the shoe on the other foot, fighting hard to make sure that no hacker is able to get into the system, by testing it as best as you can.
3. Programming
It should go without saying but the very best skill which you must have in your arsenal is computer knowledge and programming ability. You have to know computers and systems inside out, you must understand everything that there is to understand about security and what can make something less secure and you should also be smarter than the people who may very well wish to hack into these systems for different reasons. This again is why you must have to be passionate about what you are doing, becasue you are going to have to work exceptionally hard to amass the ability to be brilliant in this job role.
4. Studious
The reason why creating watertight software is difficult is becasue there are always new ways and means in which people will look to exploit a piece of software. Hackers are even coming up with automated systems now which use pre-set algorithms to break software, and that is what you are coming up against. This means that you must have a studious mentality in order to consistently keep learning about the new ways and techniques that there are of hacking into systems. This is one of the most important aspects f a job as an ethical hacker and it is something which you’ll be doing throughout your career.
5. Honesty
The term ethical hacker is used for a reason and in order to have the wherewithal and the drive to go up against the hackers in this way, you have to be an honest person. You should be outraged t what could possibly happen if a piece of software that you have worked on gets hacked, and this is what will ensure that you have the passion which we have spoken about and the ability to be confidential.
Hacking isn’t always bad and those who work as ethical hackers perform an incredible job for us all, in keeping our computers and our systems safe and secure.
