Advantages and Disadvantages of Ethical Hacking

In this article, we will discuss the overview of ethical hacking and will also discuss the ethical hacking process and then finally will focus on the advantages and disadvantages. Let’s discuss it one by one.

Overview :
The term “ethical hacking” is defined as the method followed by ethical hackers, to hack into a system with prior permission to find out vulnerabilities so that they can be fixed before a person with malicious intent perform some disallowed task. These professionals are part of a cybersecurity company. They are hired by companies to perform hacking tasks. The goal of ethical hacking in a company is to protect the systems from attackers, to ensure the privacy of organization data, to eliminate any potential threat.

Ethical hacking process :
There is six-step usually performed by ethical hackers in the ethical hacking process.

1. Reconnaissance –
   It is the principal stage where the Hacker attempts to gather data about the objective. It incorporates Identifying the Target, discovering the objective’s IP Address Range, DNS records, Network, and so on.
   
2. Scanning –
   In this stage, the hacker starts to effectively test an objective machine or organization for weaknesses that can be abused. It incorporates the utilization of apparatuses like dialers, network mappers, sweepers, port scanners, and weakness scanners to check information.
   
3. Gaining Access –
   In this stage, the hacker plans the outline of the organization of the objective with the assistance of information gathered during observation and checking. The hacker has got done with identifying and checking the organization and now concludes that they have a few alternatives to access the organization.
   
4. Maintaining Access –
   It is the interaction where the hacker has effectively gotten entrance into a framework. By getting entrance, the hacker introduces a few secondary passages to go into the framework when he needs access in this possessed framework in the future. Metasploit is the favored apparatus in this cycle.
   
5. Clearing Tracks –
   This process is basically an unethical activity. It has to do with the erasure of logs of the multitude of exercises that occur during the hacking interaction.
   
6. Reporting –
   It is the last step of finishing the ethical hacking process. In this the Ethical Hacker aggregates a report with his discoveries and the work that was done, for example, the instruments utilized, weaknesses found, the achievement rate, and the endeavor measures.

Advantages of Ethical Hacking :
Following are the advantages of Ethical Hacking as follows.

• This helps to fight against cyber terrorism and to fight against national security breaches.
• This helps to take preventive action against hackers.
• This helps to build a system that prevents any kinds of penetration by hackers.
• This offers security to banking and financial establishments.
• This helps to identify and close the open holes in a computer system or network.

Disadvantages of Ethical Hacking :
Following are the disadvantages of Ethical Hacking as follows.

• This may corrupt the files or data of an organization.
• They might use information gained for malicious use. Subsequently, trustful programmers are expected to have achievement in this framework.
• By hiring such professionals will increase costs to the company.
• This technique can harm someone’s privacy.
• This system is illegal.
• It hampers system operation