Ethical Hacking
The first ever ethical hack was carried out in 1939, by the British, to decode encrypted German messages during World War II. Hacking has come a long way since then. As a term, it’s usually associated with computer criminals—those who sabotage computers and electronic systems for personal gain.
But this is only part of the truth, as there are primarily two types of hackers, black hat and white hat. Black hats are the computer criminals, architects of cyber warfare and terrorism. Right from stealing passwords and sifting through your personal details to engineering programmes and instruments which destabilise security systems to holding companies and organisations to ransom, black hat hackers are always on the wrong side of the law. The white hat hacker are the ethical hackers, experts at systems breaching and compromising security systems. What sets them apart is that they don’t use the data acquired for personal gain or unwarranted advantage. Instead, they report their successful attacks and breaches to an organisation they might be working for, even do the attacks at the behest of organisations, thus enabling them to patch up leaks and improve defenses.
A systems breach today can cause billions of dollars’ worth of damage, not just to an organisation but also to associated industries. So organisations offer rewards and recruit promising individuals with hefty packages across the globe, to constantly help expose flaws and loopholes in their systems.
Today, ethical hacking is an exciting proposition and can be studied at a number of specialised institutions in India. “The cyber security market is expected to grow to $35 billion by 2025. Thus the demand for skilled professionals in the space is very high, coming from all over— domestic companies, MNCs, government and IT firms bringing in work from clients,” says Sunil Khanna, vicepresident, NIIT University. Depending upon posts and prowess, pay packages in India today vary anywhere from Rs 7 lakh to 25 lakh per annum.