--Originally published at The Hitchhiker's Guide to information security… according to me!
Hackers, those evil dudes that steal all the money of your bank account number while sitting in an Starbucks table zipping from a frappuccino. Also, the inspiration of so many movies, videogames and tv shows like Watchdogs and Mr. Robot, but do we actually know what the heck does hacking mean? No, it’s not clicking violently 1’s and 0’s into the command terminal of a computer. It goes deeper… way deeper.
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Let’s start with some background. Ethics, the core of our beautiful society, are a system of moral principles that dictate how decisions are taken and in general how to live life, it includes our rights and responsibilities and what is right and wrong, and surprisingly, they exist in the computer world too. Can you believe it?!
There are four areas of computer ethics:
- Computer crime:
- Responsibility for computer failure:
- Protection of computer property:
- Privacy:
Now straight to the point. Hacking involves any activity that results in the unauthorised entry into a system or network, a hacker is a person who penetrates systems and exploits vulnerabilities in order to gain unauthorised access to data and resources. So yes, he might steal your data, but the frappuccino is optional.
But the real question here is, are all hackers that bad? Quick answer. No. But let me go deeper. Many hackers hack into a system without causing damage or stealing data, they do it because it is a challenge, however there are other hackers who want to commit fraud, steal or damage other people. Most of the time the hackers are employees who have easier access to the system. Usually the term “hacker” is related to something bad, illegal or vandalic; however not everyone out there is a bad person there exist three different hacker types which vary in 
So the first type of hackers and the ones you definitely don’t want to mess up with are the Black hat Hackers. these guys are the evil of the internet; using their knowledge they find exploits and vulnerabilities in web and app services. with the information obtained they find personal gain such as stealing money, sell personal information to others, among other very very bad things.
But thanks there exists the superheroes out there, willing to fight the evil and make a better world for us, and in this context those are called white hats or “ethical hacker”. This guys are the stars in our play. Companies hire white hats to purposely hack into their systems, discover security flaws and report them back to the company so that they can fix them before there’s any harm.
But as in this life not everything is white or black there are also the antiheroes. A combination between the white and black. Wait for it.. Yes, gray hackers. Totally unexpected. This guys are similar to black in the fact they commit illegal intrusion to system; however they don’t atempt to obtain personal gain from their actions. Their goal is to report the companies about flaws in their security, yet they don’t do it as cool as the white hackers do; they brag attention by exposing these flaws in security to everybody.
But is this even important, aren’t hacker product of our imagination? Well if they are, how do you explain THIS?! =>One of the biggest hacker conventions is DEFCON. It happens in Las Vegas and it receives between 12,000 and 13,000 people. It is very important because in this event you can update your hacking knowledge by hearing all the new methods and tendencies and by this means protect yourself. It is also place of one of the biggest hacking contest.
Last week we got the chance of speaking with Maggie Jauregui. She presented a conference in the event which was really impressive. She also spoke with us about the whole culture that can be experienced in the event. That same day we talked with the founder of White Suite Hacking. He explained few things about ethical hacking.
But who will believe this kind of madness without a real case example. Well, here is one for all superstitious person. Olivier Beg is a 19 year old dutch boy who has recently won a 1,000,000 miles award from United Airlines for finding about 20 security flaws in their system. “It’s figuring out what a programmer forgot” is what Oliver said when asked about what is hacking like in the documentary Zero Days. <= (Totally recommended. More of this later). He has also helped companies like Google, Yahoo, Facebook, eBay, Paypal, etc., with many other security flaws. He is considered a white hacker because he uses his skills to tell companies about their errors instead of taking advantage of the situation. One example will be the time when Olivier send a video to Yahoo asking to fix a fault in their system where a cupon input turned the bill into $0 for a store page. He could have shopped for free, but he instead decided to tell the company abiding to the code of ethical hacking.
White hackers or ethical hacking is becoming a very important role in our society… Wanna know why? Check my previous post Paranoid Android? These superheroes prevent that the systems that have a very important role in our daily lives stay safe from evildoers and that is the kind of role model I wanna look up to.
I made this post in collaboration with my bff’s. We all collaborated equally so a can’t sleep without thanking Mario, Diego and Chava. Please check their blogs because they’re as awesome as me.
https://salvadorahedo.wordpress.com/
