Ethics : Ethical Hacking Gaining Access

Every Single day it is indeed a full-time job for the network administrator to keep up with the changing technologies. These new technologies come with new challenges, threats, and vulnerabilities which a smart network administrator must solve to keep the system secure. The network administrator must keep up with new hacking techniques, latest countermeasures, and in-depth knowledge of company’s data to address the suspicious activities and minimize their effects. But then comes the question of Ethics. Should the network administrator access employees’ private emails or websites logs to ensure company’s rules aren’t violated? Is it ok to browse employees’ documents or graphics files stored on the computers or on file servers? So, the network administrator has both charms and pitfalls as he has a huge responsibility to secure the company by carrying out his duties in an ethical way. This paper explains some ethical and social challenges a future network administrator may encounter in a company. The paper also introduces some basic ways the new network administrator can use to maintain a healthy, trustful, and ethical relationship between his work and the society.

In the early days of computing, a hacker was primarily referred to as a computer guru, someone who is extremely technical with a high expertise in computer also known as “Expert Programmers”. Nevertheless, as technology is advancing at a face pace, hacking has adopted a completely different definition. The modern definition is someone who access a computer system primarily to steal or destroy information. Hacking has caused major harm in the realm of technology. Over the years, hackers have become much more lethal in their craft. They manage to break into complex information systems from entities such as banks, government agencies, and private businesses. Furthermore, they often manipulate their victims through social engineering in order to obtain financial benefits. Hackers hold different label such as: black hat hacker and white hat hacker in which all have their own motives.

Linton (2011, p.44) stated that hacking of network of common users and attacking their personal computers is one of the most threatening problems at present. It is happening in every second that results in a loss in several ways like loss of credentials, personal information etcetera. Although the use of personal computers and the internet has been increased rapidly, numbers of users who are the expert and have good knowledge to tackle the matters are very rare. In addition, time, as well as required equipment to protect hacking, is also very.

In this report I will be describing the ways in which networks can be attacked, also be giving real life example of each of the below.

These attacks can be extremely damaging to one’s intellectual properties (information, money, etc) as well as a concern for personal safety. The key to stopping or minimizing these attacks is to learn what these attacks are and how they are executed to really create an effective plan to stop unnecessary losses.

Each year there are many attempts to illegal gain entry into networks by attackers to steal information. Some attacks are designed to steal information while other may be to attack a system to cause damage or disrupt services. Attack can happen from anywhere in the world due to the internet and networks. A person from China can hack into an American network or such Stuxnet virus attack on Iran nuclear power plan which thought to be from Israel or United States but it is unsure where the virus originated from. According to Merkow & Breithaupt (2006), viruses caused the greatest financial loss over other computer crimes, (p 142). Worm is a type of virus which replicates and can easily infect a machine and then spread out across the network by using transport features of the computer or network.

Dougherty, C., Householder, A., & Houle, K. (2002). Computer attack trends challenge Internet security. Computer, 35(4), 0005-7.

Almost 90 percent of our society now depends on complex computer based system. With the increasingly use of computer and explosive growth of the Internet has brought many good things: electronic commerce, online banking, e-mail, video conferencing etc. The improvement of systems security to prevent criminal hacker has become an important concern to society. There are many ways to protect those information systems; it seems that the Ethical Hacking is a better way. Therefore, whether to teach or not teach the "Ethical Hacking" as a course in Tertiary education has become an interesting argument. In this article will analysis the ethical, legal, and ethical implications of this issue.

They exploit network design weaknesses such as sending ping requests to death, or establishing computationally heavy tasks such encryption and decryption of the victim. The attacks have become rampant because hackers have availed the attack tools to help adversaries bypass the weak security measures in place. The attacks can be direct or reflector (Kinicki, 2012).

Ellen Nakashima and Ashkan Soltani (2014), in “ The ethics of Hacking 101” article focus on how ethics is related to teaching hacking. Famous university professors teach their student the principle of hacking but expect from them in return to be ethical in what they do. For example professor Sujeet Shenoi at the university of Tulsa teaches his students on how to hack into oil pipeline and electric power electric plants but won’t accept students into his program unless they promise to work , if hired for the National Security Agency, the Energy Department or another U.S. government agency. David Brumley at Carnegie Mellon University instructs students on how to write software that enable user to hack into networks. George Hotz who made

The ethical issues surrounding hacking, stem from several sources mainly dealing with order and control, and information ownership. What is difficult to decipher from all the media hoopla surrounding the terms, "hacker" and "hacking" is both the simultaneous sensationalism and the condemnation of said activities. Of course just recently, even a movie was made and was appropriately called Hackers. The term and all that it implies has truly entered our popular consciousness when Hollywood has made a box office movie on it. As the advancement of computer technologies and systems of information become increasingly more and more complex in today's fast paced modern world and said technologies become an integral

Hacking is the process of gaining unauthorized access to information through various means like systems or computers. In the context of computer security, a hacker is that person who looks for weakness in a system so that they can gain access to unauthorized information. They are motivated by various reasons like protest, profits or evaluating the entire system weaknesses.

A person only needs to look at the news daily to see that not one person or organization is safe from the threat posed by hackers. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) information stolen recently only highlights the threat of such actors. The OPM hack took personal records for any government employee whom had a security clearance provided by the United States government. The infringement of personnel data by a group of hackers only raises the concern of privacy for a majority of security clearance holders. Organizations have to look at all options to securing networks and data to ensure the security mechanisms that are in place stand up to persistent threats. Most organizations can spend extraordinary amounts of money to secure data and networks, but still leave vectors that a hacker can exploit. Once all security aspects are in place a good resource is then to bring in ethical hackers or White Hat hackers in to test the security of the system. The goal of ethical hacking is to uncover vulnerabilities from an adversary’s point of view so the security system can be improved. Ethical hacking should be part of the organizations overall information risk management program, which allows for constant security improvements. In the security life cycle, ethical hacking can be viewed as a security assessment. Ethical hacking shows the

The internet is a medium that is becoming progressively important as it makes information available in a quick and easy manner. It has transformed communications and acts as a global network that allows people to communicate and interact without being limited by time, boarders and distance. However, the infrastructure is vulnerable to hackers who use the system to commit cyber crime. To accomplish this, they make use of innovative stealth techniques for their malicious purposes in the internet.

Denial of Service attacks are characterized as an explicit attempt by a hacker so as to prevent a user from getting or using the desired resources. Examples of such an attack are: