Every computer system is vulnerable in some way. In other words, no computer system is 100% safe and secure. Ensuring that the computer system is less vulnerable to attacks by continuous maintenance and scanning for vulnerabilities and fixing is one of the major preventive measures that organizations are focusing on.

A hacker is a programmer who tries to hack into a computer system in an unauthorized way to cause harm to the computer system itself or to the stakeholders of the system. But hacking is not always wrong!!!

There are different types of hackers with different motives.

Black Hat Hackers

Black hat hackers hack into a computer system illegally for monetary gain or to cause harm. They may distribute malware to destroy files, steal passwords, credit card numbers or other sensitive information or takeover or use the computers to perform a malicious act.

Grey Hat Hackers

Grey hat hackers walk between Black and White hat hackers. Grey hat hackers hack into computer systems and search for vulnerabilities and flaws and report them to the computer system owner. But they do this without owners knowledge or consent. They might request a fee for finding and reporting vulnerabilities.

White Hat Hackers (Ethical Hackers)

White hat hackers are often called as ethical hackers. White hat hackers try to hack into a computer system to find the vulnerabilities and exports with owners prior knowledge and authorization. White hat hackers are cyber security professionals who are working for an organization.

Ethical hackers must follow certain guidelines to make sure they perform the hacking legally. Following are the most important rules of ethical hacking.

• Ethical hacker must ensure that hacking into the computer system is legal. Ethical hacker must obtain proper documentation and approval from the system owners prior to hacking in.
• Ethical hacker must disclose all the vulnerabilities to the system owners with the suggestions how to resolve the issue.
• Ethical hacker must keep the data and information that he comes into contact while hacking into the system confidential. The hacker might have to sign an NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement) with the company before the start.
• Ethical hacker must erase all traces of hack after the vulnerabilities are reported to prevent black hat hackers following the traces.

Primary threat to an organization is that a black hat hacker understanding and exploiting a system vulnerability to gain access to the computer system and stealing customer's sensitive data or performing a malicious act to disrupt organizations day to day activities. This can cause millions of losses to the organizations and put customer's sensitive data at risk.

Key benefit of ethical hacking is to identify these gaps or vulnerabilities of the system that can be exploited and fix them and implementing preventive measures before any attack occurs.