When people hear the term “hacking”, they automatically think negatively about this concept. However, there is such a thing as ethical hacking, which can be a beneficial and rewarding skill to learn. If you want to learn ethical hacking, you can actually make a significant impact for the businesses or organizations that you work for. By reading on, you can learn everything that you need to know about ethical hacking and why this is a field you should get into.
Understanding Ethical Hacking
Hacking is a term that gets a back reputation, typically associated with people who have malicious intent. However, if you are going into ethical hacking (white hat hacker) you are using these hacking skills to help the authorities as well as reporting any significant vulnerabilities in a system. There are so many different skills that are necessary if you are going to go into ethical hacking, including:
- Data Management Systems (DBMS)
- Social engineering
- Linus
- Cryptography
It’s not easy becoming an ethical hacker, but in an era where cyber attacks frequently occur. This is a field that is in very high demand. If you are interested in going into a field where you can use your technical skills to help make the cyber world a safer place for everyone.
Top 5 Reasons to Learn Ethical Hacking
While it can be difficult to get the skills that you require to be successful in this industry. This can be a very rewarding field to get into. There are plenty of reasons why you should take the plunge and get into ethical hacking. This section will take a closer look at the top 5 reasons why you should take the time to learn ethical hacking.
1. Understanding How a Hacker Thinks
Easily one of the biggest benefits of learning ethical hacking is to both improve upon how the corporate network gets defended but also how to inform companies how to better defend their network. This is why it’s so important to get into the head of the black hat hacker, which is the biggest threat to the cyber security of any organization.
Once you learn exactly how the hacker operates, you are better able to identify any potential vulnerabilities and prioritize them. Unfortunately, you are not going to be able to prevent every attack from hackers, but you can minimize the risks and reduce the impact a cyber attack will have on an organization.
Through extensive training in ethical hacking, you can be able to understand the mindset of a hacker and use this knowledge to protect an organization from cyber threats.
2. Gain Knowledge to Find Better Approaches to Cyber Security
As you develop your skills as an ethical hacker, you can learn about the different and adequate security options that might have had previous cyber security breaches. This allows you to have an easier time learning about the latest best practices and standards in this field. This includes concepts such as:
- Testing the security of web security
- Linux and Windows
- The art of hacking
- Mobile phone hacking/security
Through learning all of these concepts, you are going to have an easier time as you try to break into this industry as well as in trying to grow in your career.
3. Can Go into Quality Assurance and Development
Whenever there are new products developed, there are many people who decide to skip out on testing their cyber security. However, this can be a major mistake as this leaves the products open for attacks by those with malicious intent using your vulnerabilities against you. If the company has an ethical hacker as part of their team, they are able to go through the process of security testing more efficiently according to the latest standards and practices in the industry.
In addition to testing the security of these products, it can also be helpful in developing products. Through your knowledge of hacking, you can help expedite the process of discovering and fixing any vulnerabilities and learning about common coding errors that you can help your team avoid as they are developing products.
4. Decent Salary
It’s important to have a passion for ethical hacking but it doesn’t hurt that you get a good salary package while you are working in this industry. If you are a certified ethical hacker, you can often expect around $71,000 a year for your salary. Through learning everything that you can about ethical hacking, you are going to be more likely to get hired in this field. But this is an industry that is in high demand, which is one reason why salaries can be so good in this industry. Businesses and organizations are starting to understand the importance of protecting their information and their customer data. That’s why they are willing to pay ethical hackers to be on their side.
5. Plenty of Options
Another great thing is that you have so many different options when you go into ethical hacking. You can work for a large enterprise or a startup also you can work in any industry that you want. You can travel around because cyber security is a global issue, allowing you to travel regularly as a consultant or move to any location that you’ve dreamed of. Cyber attacks happen everywhere and organizations across the globe are looking for ethical hackers to help them out.
It is important to remember that in this industry, businesses are trusting you to do the right thing. You aren’t in this for monetary gain, aside from your salary. You’re not in it for malicious reasons. You are here to help organizations improve their cyber security.
Conclusion
Ethical hackers are in very high demand these days, especially since cyber-attacks are so common. Regular people, schools, hospitals, and other governmental organizations can be significantly impacted by a cyber-attack. It’s important to have experts in this industry that are passionate about protecting other people’s data. As an ethical hacker, you can have a major impact on the businesses that you work with.