To improve the security on the internet, there’s been an increasing demand for ethical hackers (also known as white hat hackers) as they protect
the computer systems from dangerous intrusions. There’s been need of technically skilled IT pros with a strong desire to solve problems and
prevent malicious hackers from causing damage to network systems.
We should know that the internet security is not about creating awareness, it’s all about contributing yourself to improve it and ethical hacking is
the way you can contribute. Many people ask me every day “How to become an ethical hacker?”. And I always tell them that to be a professional
ethical hacker you require motivation, dedication, initiative, self-education and formal training in ethical hacking. But, it doesn’t seem like they get
satisfaction after my answer.
So, here I am going to share “How to become an ethical hacker” and I’ll be adding some articles at the End of this article where you can learn the
basics of white hat hacking and I will be linking some of my articles which will help you to understand it better. So, first of all, clear your concepts
regarding the difference between a hacker and a cracker.
A hacker is a computer programmer who loves to tweak with the computer systems to get more than available information and would like to have
an unrestricted access to anything he desires. And a Cracker is a malicious hacker i.e. a cracker is a hacker who had hideous intentions and likes
creating/destroying others. He simply gets happiness by hurting someone else. In short remember a cracker is the bad guy-the sadist!
How to become an Ethical Hacker?
Hacking is not something you can learn by simply reading eBooks, reading this article, watching YouTube videos, liking hacking related facebook pages or by following some websites. But these are very important to practice for hacking and to raise your interest and gain more knowledge. Yes, It needs a lot more efforts. You have to be constantly updated with the latest technology and you should do a lot of live hacking then only will you reach near perfection.
Read: Premium Ethical Hacking and Programming courses online
Now, If you are serious about learning this stuff, you must have patience and knowledge of following:
1. Programming
A programmer or developer knows how to develop a software and a website. This software or websites may be very important and require better security. Here, a role of hacker will be as a security analyst who should find the flaws in the programs or websites and help a programmer to make it more secure. It is not possible if the hacker doesn’t have the knowledge of programming and development. So, You have to keep patience and learn programming. I have already written some articles that will help you to understand programming and development.
How to become a Good Programmer?
Best Websites to Learn Programming.
You must read these articles to learn about programming.
2. Networking
The knowledge of networking is very essential. We daily share a lot of stuff on the internet. Some data may be shared publicly but some data must be secured like your passwords, pictures, bank information etc. An ethical hacker must have the ability to find out any flaw in the network security. If he/she is well aware of the working of an internet, he/she can figure out most of the problems on the network. I am mentioning some articles that will help you to learn about internet concepts and the reality of passwords you daily use.
Internet concepts: How does internet work ?
Password Secrets: Everyone should be aware about .
3. Cryptography
Do you know whenever you Log-In to your bank website (or any website that requires high security), It encrypts your information so nobody can understand what your information is? It is possible with cryptography. There are basically two terms used in the cryptography:
Encryption
Decryption
Encryption is changing real data into another form so nobody can understand and decryption is getting back the information that were changed into the another form. The data can be de-crypted by the same system that is used for encryption using the same technology.
So, a hacker must have knowledge of cryptography and its algorithms and key concepts. It is definitely not hard to learn if you learn with proper interest .
4. Database Management system
If you know the programming and development then you must know how the website or program is developed. We will have knowledge of networking so we will find out whether the host is properly connected and secured or not. With the help of cryptography, we will insure that how much the data is secured.
But is there something missing? Yes, we did not talk about the databases. All the data we share on the internet through any website is saved somewhere in databases. And these databases contain very important and sensitive information which must be only visible to authorize person like our bank account (Though, a Facebook account is more important). Even if the data is encrypted, A hacker may brute-force the algorithms and decrypts the data. So , A database must be properly secured from attacks.
To be an ethical hacker, you must have to know how data is stored , how data is retrieved and how it can be secured.
5. Linux
Linux is powerful. It’s also free, and 100% open source, meaning anyone can look at each and every line of code in the Linux kernel and patch it when problems arise, means that Linux can be secured not just by a few programmers locked away in some corporate headquarters, but by any user at any time. This is one thing , but there are 99 more.
I have written two articles and they are enough to tell you why do I prefer Linux
Why does hacker Prefer Linux?
10 reasons : why should we use Linux.
That’s all . I might not satisfied you hunger to learn hacking but trust me there is nothing you can do if you just ignored the whole article. I am sharing some more interesting article below that will rise your interest in hacking