THE TOOLS: ETHICAL HACKER - ULTIMATE BEGINNER HANDBOOK TO COMPUTER HACKING ESSENTIALS: LEARN ETHICAL HACKING, PENETRATION TESTING AND BASIC SECURITY: 50+ FREE RESOURCES TO HELP YOU MASTER THE ART OF HACKING (2015)

ULTIMATE BEGINNER HANDBOOK TO COMPUTER HACKING ESSENTIALS: LEARN ETHICAL HACKING, PENETRATION TESTING AND BASIC SECURITY: 50+ FREE RESOURCES TO HELP YOU MASTER THE ART OF HACKING (2015)

THE TOOLS: ETHICAL HACKER

The tools of the Ethical Hacker often reflect the capabilities of the Ethical Hacker. As mentioned before, an Ethical Hacker must be able to have a lot of data in order to ensure that they have a round-about understanding of what security issues they must be dealing with.

TRACKING DATA PROGRAMS

There are several programs that track data submission and methods, and these allow Ethical Hackers to determine the origin of a hacker, where they came in, and even how they got in. Such programs will track IP addresses, Data Packages, Mac Address Orgins, and even determine the speed at which the information was passed to collect data on the speed of the internet that is being used. This allows the Ethical Hacker to cover up those areas with additional security and also allows them to ensure that scripts that they make to prevent entry are faster than the most likely speed of internet the other hacker will be using.

LANGUAGE SPECIFICITY

Another large problem in it of itself is the ability to write the language that the security issues are taking place in. If an ethical hacker has been hired to protect a specific program and not just the computers, odds are is that the Ethical Hacker will need to know the language of the program in order to make sure they can write their own scripts in that same language so that their preventative protections can be put into place. A part of this issue are the actual holes within a language. If a hacker knows what language is being used, not only can the program be at risk, but the actual code of the program can be altered. An example of this is a PHP based website, which is vulnerable to the classic GET, DELETE, and POST methods, which are a part of the language. Unless there are specific measures put into place, the hacker on the other end will have a very easy time simple going into a comment box and pulling all of the data from a website on to their hard drive.

HIDDEN CAMERAS

As mentioned before, an Ethical Hacker also has to look at the people behind the physical network to determine whether they will be a problem or not. The hidden cameras are for when the Ethical Hacker needs to do a Risk Assessment on the person within the video and determine which factors led to a specific success, or which questions, when asked in the right order, would pull out the most information. Additionally, video recordings can be used by the Human Resources Department to determine if the employee is in a stressed state and needs to be taken care of in terms of their working conditions. Ethical Hackers are often mindful that a person’s weaknesses are not their own fault and that an average employee is not expected to be one hundred percent fool proof. Even the janitor may look up something on his phone while being connected to the internet at work and has no idea that someone took his phone, and modified it, while he was on his lunch break. This process is done often to ensure that people are mindful of what they do and how their actions can affect the business.

FORENSIC ANALYST PROGRAMS

There is a fine line between a Forensic Analyst and an Ethical Hacker because most of what they do are extremely similar. Therefore, what will usually benefit a Forensic Analyst will often benefit an Ethical Hacker, and vice versa. These programs will keep log files of occurrences throughout the day on a network, track unauthorized uses, pinpoint origin points for viruses, and are generally helpful in every step of the process. The only problem is that not everything a Forensic Analyst can use, can also be used by an Ethical Hacker. A Forensic Analyst can go into personal emails and sensitive material that Ethical Hackers are told not to touch, and, in some areas, Ethical Hackers are even told not to touch specific areas of the network because the information on that side is too sensitive for an individual to have their hands on. However, the benefit to this is that that section of the network is usually closed off from the rest of the network as much as possible and often requires little to no effort when it comes to providing a solution. Since the network remains untouched, Ethical Hackers only have to track incoming and outgoing data from that network

SCRIPTING EFFICIENCY

Another part that has been mentioned are scripts. Scripts are simple sets of code that automatically preform preventative security actions faster than a normal human to ensure they shut down the attack as fast as possible. These are written in a similar language to the actual program that naturally protects the computer and some Ethical Hackers end up with so many scripts that they make an entirely different security program to handle them all. This allows them to keep track of all the different scripts, determine if the scripts need to be faster, and to find out when the scripts are conflicting with each other. These scripts are a vital part of the protection program as a script will always be faster than the human hand, so anything that can be written in the form of the script will be ten times better than if the Ethical Hacker would have to do it by hand.

DRIVER DOCUMENTATION

One of the pet peeves of the entire industry is Driver Documentation and there’s a very good reason. Your computer has hundreds, if not thousands of drivers, that are needed in order to make the computer work effectively. A driver is a binary-level software that allows the computer to communicate with either the hardware or the software. Documentation of those drivers tells security specialists and Ethical Hackers what needs to be done to protect the end user from the security holes that those drivers have. If there isn’t enough or a proper form of documentation, that means the security specialist or Ethical Hacker has to run close to a thousand tests to see all the potential holes that the driver allows for the hackers of the world to get in through.