An ethical hacking degree has revealed rewarding employment options for many people, and a good reason. Ethical hacking, also known as penetration testing, enters or penetrates systems or networks to identify hazards and vulnerabilities that a malevolent attacker could exploit, resulting in data loss, financial loss, or other substantial changes. It never gets boring, increases demand, pays you well, and gives you a sense of accomplishment.
If you are looking to pursue a career in Ethical Hacking, this guide will certainly help you get there.
What is an Ethical Hacker?
An ethical hacker is a skilled professional with exhaustive technical knowledge and skills who can find and exploit loopholes in target systems. They work with the consent of the system's owner and must follow the target organisation's or owner's policies and the law of the land. Their goal is to evaluate a target organisation's security posture.
The goal of ethical hacking is to increase the security of a network or system by addressing vulnerabilities discovered during testing. They can utilise the same methods and tools as malevolent hackers, but only with the authorities' approval for the same. For the goal of enhancing security and safeguarding systems against harmful user attacks.
What is an Ethical Hacking Degree?
Computer networking, digital forensics, expert development, and programming are all covered in this course. You'll discover ways to safeguard data and information systems. Our Ethical Hacking degree will provide you with a thorough grasp of cybercrime, allowing you to detect and stop hackers quickly.
There appears to be a widespread misperception that an ethical hacker's job entails simply penetration testing systems and apps. However, this is not the case. An ethical hacker is in charge of a lot more.
For example, they are in charge of scanning open and closed ports utilising recognition tools like messes and EMA scanning, determining target systems' operating systems and architecture, identifying network vulnerabilities and threats, and fog scanning.
An ethical hacker must involve members of their organisation in social engineering awareness efforts. Over time, social engineering has proven to be one of the most effective methods for general hacking. Knowing how to avoid any social manipulation is critical to organisation security.
An ethical hacker is also allowed to test new patch releases and software upgrades for the company's products and peripherals. They must uncover any vulnerabilities in the patch and tell the right team to get them fixed.
Ethical hackers are in charge of sniffing networks, bypassing and cracking wireless encryption, and hijacking web servers and online applications for system testing and security.
By examining the protection mechanisms and social engineering features of an organisation, an ethical hacker attempts to duplicate the actions of a black hat hacker.
The goal is to ensure that companies respond appropriately to these situations if they haven't already.
Best Options for an Ethical Hacker Degree
All security professionals who provide offensive services, whether red team, pentester, or freelance gross consultant, are considered ethical hackers. Job titles such as security analyst or engineer may also include offensive elements. These offensive security services are frequently grouped within a company under a threat and vulnerability management group.
An ethical hacker can take up a degree from one of the following options.
- Diploma in Ethical Hacking and IT Security
- Diploma in Ethical Hacking
- Diploma in Ethical Hacking & Cyber Security
- BSc Networking
- BTech CSE (Cyber Security and Forensics)
- BTech CSE (Cyber Security and Threat Intelligence)
- BSc in Cyber Security
- MTech in Information Security
- MTech CSE (Information Security)
- MTech CSE (Cyber Security and Forensics)
- MTech CSE (Cyber Security and Threat Intelligence)
- MSc in Cyber Security
- MSc Cyber Security & Digital Forensics
Ethical Hacking Requirements
Ethical hacking requires expertise in database management, networking, operating systems, and excellent interpersonal skills, as they must explain security issues to the rest of the firm. One can easily learn this in a certified course and upskill themselves. Check out the Ethical Hacking course details for more.
Aside from these broad skill sets, an ethical hacker must additionally be proficient in the following areas.
- The most crucial requirement is the knowledge of computer networks, which are used for sniffing traffic. Sniffing is the technique of employing sniffing tools to monitor and capture all packets passing via a network. Wiretapping is a toughening phone cable to obtain information about a conversation.
- They should also be able to coordinate network and database attacks, as their primary responsibility is to anticipate black hat hackers, which requires the ability to think and act like a black hat hacker.
- Ethical hackers must deal with a variety of operating systems regularly. Thus they must have a thorough understanding of how operating systems work.
- Ethical hackers must also deal with a variety of database formats. Whether it's SQL, PostgreSQL, or SQL, ethical hackers must understand how they work and are built.
- Cryptography and cryptanalysis are two skills that an ethical hacker should have. Cryptography is the process of deciphering ciphertext without knowing the key.
- An ethical hacker is usually in charge of network traffic monitoring. Therefore they must be skilled in intrusion detection and prevention techniques, hijacking expertise, and a general understanding of networking.
- Last but not least, ethical hackers must create custom software to address specific security issues that may be hurting the firm; this necessitates a basic understanding of programming languages to put the remedies to the problems you identify in the organisation into action.
Common Careers in Ethical Hacking
Following completion of an ethical hacking degree or certificate program, candidates can pursue one of the following career paths:
- Ethical Hacker
- Information Security Analyst
- Security Analyst
- Information Security Manager
- Penetration Tester
- Security Consultant
How to Become an Ethical Hacker?
Ethical hacking jobs are becoming more plentiful, with even higher pay. According to current data, just 32% of workers working in the IT field are professionally trained in defending against cyber threats.
Given the digital economy's exponential growth, we can expect the field of ethical hacking to expand, with every firm requiring highly skilled Ethical Hackers to secure the security of critical data and systems.
Your current line of work will determine how you begin your ethical hacking career.
Even though most employment in the information technology area requires a bachelor's degree in computer science or cybersecurity-related fields, exceptions are granted for persons who have a strong understanding of operating systems, databases, and networking.
It's also impossible to become an ethical hacker overnight. Most ethical hackers start as tech support engineers and work their way up via certifications such as CCNA and CI before pursuing the CES certification.
It's time to sell yourself as an ethical hacker after you have got the best way to learn cyber security.
Bottom Line
Virtualization and IT outsourcing are key trends in the information world moving toward the cloud. As a result of this transformation, the level of danger has increased, as has the demand for ethical hackers. Security has been a key concern since the inception of cloud computing. Companies must hire ethical hackers to get the benefits of cloud and virtualization without jeopardising security. The fast-evolving cyber environment and the intricacies of security regulations provide a big issue for today's enterprises. Hacking strategies change daily, and only a skilled specialist can conquer this hurdle. In today's commercial world, ethical hackers are in high demand.
An ethical hacker can work for any organisation with an Internet-facing site or anything to do with the internet, including colleges like MIT and even private companies ranging from logistics to data warehousing.
Check out the KnowledgeHut’s Ethical Hacking course details, enroll, and start with your journey. It's a 13-month online course that will teach you how to grasp application security, data secrecy, cryptography, and network security.
