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The Only Professional Ethical Hacking Article You Will Ever Need

When we talk of Ethical Hacking, the first thing that comes to mind is Ethical hackers. They are also known as “white hats,” ethical hackers are security experts that perform security assessments. The proactive work they do helps to improve an organization’s security posture. With prior approval from the organization or owner of the IT asset, the mission of ethical hacking is opposite from malicious hacking. 

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What is Ethical Hacking

Ethical hacking involves an authorized attempt to gain unauthorized access to a computer system, application, or data. Carrying out an ethical hack involves duplicating strategies and actions of malicious attackers. This practice helps to identify security vulnerabilities which can then be resolved before a malicious attacker has the opportunity to exploit them.

What Differentiates Ethical Hacking from Other Types of Hacking

Ethical Hacking experts follow four key protocol concepts:

  1. Stay legal. Obtain proper approval before accessing and performing a security assessment.
  2. Define the scope. Determine the scope of the assessment so that the ethical hacker’s work remains legal and within the organization’s approved boundaries.
  3. Report vulnerabilities. Notify the organization of all vulnerabilities discovered during the assessment. Provide remediation advice for resolving these vulnerabilities.
  4. Respect data sensitivity. Depending on the data sensitivity, ethical hackers may have to agree to a non-disclosure agreement, in addition to other terms and conditions required by the assessed organization. 

Ethical Hacking Requirements

An ethical hacker should have a wide range of computer skills. They often specialize, becoming subject matter experts (SME) on a particular area within the ethical hacking domain.

All ethical hackers should have:

  • Expertise in scripting languages.
  • Proficiency in operating systems.
  • A thorough knowledge of networking.
  • A solid foundation in the principles of information security.

Some of the most well-known and acquired certifications include:

How Does Ethical Hacking Work: Phases of Ethical Hacking

Ethical hacking is a process of detecting vulnerabilities in an application, system, or organization’s infrastructure that an attacker can use to exploit an individual or organization. They use this process to prevent cyberattacks and security breaches by lawfully hacking into the systems and looking for weak points.

An ethical hacker follows the steps and thought process of a malicious attacker to gain authorized access and test the organization’s strategies and network. An attacker or an ethical hacker follows the same five-step hacking process to breach the network or system.

The ethical hacking process begins with looking for various ways to hack into the system, exploiting vulnerabilities, maintaining steady access to the system, and lastly, clearing one’s tracks.

Ethical Hacking

 

The five phases of ethical hacking are:

1. Reconnaissance

First in the ethical hacking methodology steps is reconnaissance, also known as the footprint or information gathering phase. The goal of this preparatory phase is to collect as much information as possible. Before launching an attack, the attacker collects all the necessary information about the target.

The data is likely to contain passwords, essential details of employees, etc. An attacker can collect the information by using tools such as HTTPTrack to download an entire website to gather information about an individual or using search engines such as Maltego to research about an individual through various links, job profile, news, etc.

Reconnaissance is an essential phase of ethical hacking. It helps identify which attacks can be launched and how likely the organization’s systems fall vulnerable to those attacks. Foot printing collects data from areas such as:

  • TCP and UDP services
  • Vulnerabilities
  • Through specific IP addresses
  • Host of a network

In ethical hacking, foot printing is of two types:

Active: This foot printing method involves gathering information from the target directly using Nmap tools to scan the target’s network.

Passive: The second foot printing method is collecting information without directly accessing the target in any way. Attackers or ethical hackers can collect the report through social media accounts, public websites, etc.

2. Scanning

The second step in the hacking methodology is scanning, where attackers try to find different ways to gain the target’s information. The attacker looks for information such as user accounts, credentials, IP addresses, etc. This step of ethical hacking involves finding easy and quick ways to access the network and skim for information.

Tools such as dialers, port scanners, network mappers, sweepers, and vulnerability scanners are used in the scanning phase to scan data and records. In ethical hacking methodology, four different types of scanning practices are used, they are as follows:

  1. Vulnerability Scanning: This scanning practice targets the vulnerabilities and weak points of a target and tries various ways to exploit those weaknesses. It is conducted using automated tools such as Netsparker, OpenVAS, Nmap, etc.
  2. Port Scanning: This involves using port scanners, dialers, and other data-gathering tools or software to listen to open TCP and UDP ports, running services, live systems on the target host. Penetration testers or attackers use this scanning to find open doors to access an organization’s systems.
  3. Network Scanning: This practice is used to detect active devices on a network and find ways to exploit a network. It could be an organizational network where all employee systems are connected to a single network. Ethical hackers use network scanning to strengthen a company’s network by identifying vulnerabilities and open doors.

3. Gaining Access

The next step in hacking is where an attacker uses all means to get unauthorized access to the target’s systems, applications, or networks. An attacker can use various tools and methods to gain access and enter a system.

This hacking phase attempts to get into the system and exploit the system by downloading malicious software or application, stealing sensitive information, getting unauthorized access, asking for ransom, etc. Metasploit is one of the most common tools used to gain access, and social engineering is a widely used attack to exploit a target.

Ethical hackers and penetration testers can secure potential entry points, ensure all systems and applications are password-protected, and secure the network infrastructure using a firewall. They can send fake social engineering emails to the employees and identify which employee is likely to fall victim to cyberattacks.

4. Maintaining Access

Once the attacker manages to access the target’s system, they try their best to maintain that access. In this stage, the hacker continuously exploits the system, launches DDoS attacks, uses the hijacked system as a launching pad, or steals the entire database.

A backdoor and Trojan are tools used to exploit a vulnerable system and steal credentials, essential records, and more. In this phase, the attacker aims to maintain their unauthorized access until they complete their malicious activities without the user finding out.

Ethical hackers or penetration testers can utilize this phase by scanning the entire organization’s infrastructure to get hold of malicious activities and find their root cause to avoid the systems from being exploited.

5. Clearing Track

The last phase of ethical hacking requires hackers to clear their track as no attacker wants to get caught. This step ensures that the attackers leave no clues or evidence behind that could be traced back. It is crucial as ethical hackers need to maintain their connection in the system without getting identified by incident response or the forensics team.

It includes editing, corrupting, or deleting logs or registry values. The attacker also deletes or uninstalls folders, applications, and software or ensures that the changed files are traced back to their original value.

In ethical hacking, ethical hackers can use the following ways to erase their tracks:

  1. Using reverse HTTP Shells
  2. Deleting cache and history to erase the digital footprint
  3. Using ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol) Tunnels

These are the five steps of the CEH hacking methodology that ethical hackers or penetration testers can use to detect and identify vulnerabilities, find potential open doors for cyberattacks and mitigate security breaches to secure the organizations.

 

Why Hire a Professional Ethical Hacker from Us

With over 3598 successfully-completed projects and numerous happy clients who have solicited our hacking services, our team of professional hackers is known to many as undoubtedly one of the team of hackers who happen to be on top of their game in the hacking community.

Professional Hacker for Hire is known to take good care of clients as well as their projects seriously with a guaranteed claim their task will be completed and on time. The team makes this claim because, we only accept tasks we are able to complete with no doubts. 

Where to Get a Professional Ethical Hacker for Hire

The best place to get a hacker a for hire is at professional hacker for hire website. We are a team of  Professional Penetration Testers, Security Experts and an Ethical Hackers offering Hacking Services online on the Dark Web and Clear net. you can contact us to negotiate prices or hire us.

Pricing for Ethical Hacking Services

One of our greatest organization goals is keeping our customers satisfied by offering them mouth-watering prices. Prices for hacking services at Professional Hacker for Hire are relative cheap and are completely negotiable.

Prices are relative lower thanks to the length of time we have been in business. Team members have the necessary skills and we have acquired most of the tools needed for the common hacks we offer. Contact us now to get good pricing on the hacking services we provide. 

How ever certain services such as social media accounts hacks, account recovery, email hacking have relatively fixed prices. Negotiations are done for heavy tasks such as penetration and testing, mobile phone cloning website hacking and other heavy tasks. 

References

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