Ethical Hacking

Traditionally, a hacker is someone who likes to tinker with software or electronic systems. Hackers enjoy exploring and learning how computer systems operate. They love discovering new ways to work electronically. Although ethical is an often overused and misunderstood word, the MerriamWebster dictionary defines ethical perfectly for the context of this book and the professional security testing techniques that I cover — that is, conforming to accepted professional standards of conduct. IT practitioners are obligated to perform all the tests covered in this paper aboveboard and only after permission has been obtained by the owner(s) of the systems.