What is Pen Testing or Ethical Hacking?

PEN TEST or ETHICAL HACKING?

Pentesting, also known as penetration testing or ethical hacking, is a security assessment, an analysis, and  progression of simulated attacks on an application (web, mobile, or API).

The objective is to penetrate the application security defenses by looking for vulnerabilities. These are usually weaknesses or flaws that an attacker could exploit to impact confidentiality, integrity, or availability.

The output of a pentest is a list of vulnerabilities, the risks they pose to the application or network, and a concluding report with an executive summary of the testing along with information on its methodology and recommendations for remediation.

The vulnerabilities found during a penetration test can be used to fine-tune your security policies, patch your applications or networks, identify common weaknesses across applications, and in general strengthen your entire security posture.

Hacking often refers to the unauthorized intrusion into a network or computer and normally carried out by one or more “hackers.” However, a hacker can be anyone. They can be an individual like you or me

Types of Hackers

1. Black Hat Hackers

2. White Hat Hackers

3. Grey Hat Hackers

Black Hat Hackers

A black-hat hacker is an individual who attempts to gain unauthorized entry into a system or network to exploit them for malicious reasons. The black-hat hacker does not have any permission or authority to compromise their targets. They try to inflict damage by compromising security systems, altering functions of websites and networks, or shutting down systems. They often do so to steal or gain access to passwords, financial information, and other personal data.

White Hat Hackers

White-hat hackers, on the other hand, are viewed as good guys, working with organizations to strengthen the security of a system. A white hat has permission to engage the targets and to compromise them within the prescribed rules of engagement.

White-hat hackers are often referred to as ethical hackers. This individual specializes in ethical hacking tools, techniques, and methodologies to secure an organization’s information systems.

Unlike black-hat hackers, ethical hackers exploit security networks and look for backdoors when they are legally permitted to do so. White-hat hackers always disclose every vulnerability they find in the company’s security system so that it can be fixed before they are being exploited by malicious actors.

Grey Hat Hackers

Grey hats exploit networks and computer systems in the way that black hats do, but do so without any malicious intent, disclosing all loopholes and vulnerabilities to law enforcement agencies or intelligence agencies.

Usually, grey-hat hackers surf the net and hack into computer systems to notify the administrator or the owner that their system/network contains one or more vulnerabilities that must be fixed immediately.