For Dummies 978-0-470-55093-9 Fiche technique télécharger pdf (Page 5)

Chapter 1: Introduction to Ethical Hacking

(HIPAA), Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), North American Electric Reliability

Corporation (NERC) CIP requirements, and Payment Card Industry Data

Security Standard (PCI DSS) require periodic and consistent security evalua-

tions. Incorporating your ethical hacking into these required tests is a great

way to meet the state and federal regulations and beef up your overall pri-

vacy and security compliance program.

Understanding the Need to

Hack Your Own Systems

To catch a thief, you must think like a thief. That’s the basis for ethical hack-

ing. Knowing your enemy is absolutely critical. See Chapter 2 for details

about how malicious attackers work.

The law of averages works against security. With the increased number of

hackers and their expanding knowledge, and the growing number of system

vulnerabilities and other unknowns, eventually, all computer systems and

applications will be hacked or compromised in some way. Protecting your

systems from the bad guys — and not just the generic vulnerabilities that

everyone knows about — is absolutely critical. When you know hacker tricks,

you find out how vulnerable your systems really are.

Hacking preys on weak security practices and undisclosed vulnerabilities.

Firewalls, encryption, and passwords can create a false feeling of safety.

These security systems often focus on high-level vulnerabilities, such as

basic access control, without affecting how the bad guys work. Attacking

your own systems to discover vulnerabilities helps make them more secure.

Ethical hacking is the only proven method of greatly hardening your systems

from attack. If you don’t identify weaknesses, it’s only a matter of time before

the vulnerabilities are exploited.

As hackers expand their knowledge, so should you. You must think like them

and work like them to protect your systems from them. As the ethical hacker,

you must know the activities that hackers carry out and how to stop their

efforts. Knowing what to look for and how to use that information helps you

to thwart hackers’ efforts.

You don’t have to protect your systems from everything. You can’t. The only

protection against everything is to unplug your computer systems and lock

them away so no one can touch them — not even you. But doing so is not the

best approach to information security and it’s certainly not good for business.

What’s important is to protect your systems from known vulnerabilities and

common attacks.

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For Dummies 978-0-470-55093-9 Fiche technique Page 5