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Cyber Security- Ethical and Unethical Hackers

Hackers are important and needed for us to stay protected from having our personal information stolen. There are two types of hackers, ethical and unethical. We are going to be touching on the different types of hackers and the role they play in society. I am also going to talk about the different ways a person might get hacked and how you can avoid them.

=== White Hat Hackers and Black Hat Hackers. ===

Black hat hackers are unethical hackers, they try hacking into systems, damaging them, shutting them down, stealing valuable and or personal information. White hackers, unlike black-hat hackers, are the “good guys” they work with companies and organizations to strengthen their security system. Now that we touched on the different types of hackers, let’s talk about their importance and the role they play in our society. During 2018, ethical hackers found software vulnerabilities that averted crises in ten major companies.” (Seorg, Seorg, Says, F., & Sansone, F. Paragraph 9). Ethical hackers found a way to stop unethical black hat hackers from breaking into ten major companies, which resulted in thousands of people’s personal information being protected and not tampered with or stolen. ”For example, the Pentagon now routinely runs bug bounty programs to strengthen its security posture. During September 3-18, 2019 Hack the Proxy program, the Pentagon gave 81 ethical hackers from around the world access to probe the department’s Virtual Private Networks (VPN), virtual desktops, and proxies. The Pentagon released its results on October 14, 2019. What did the ethical hackers find? They discovered 31 vulnerabilities; nine considered high severity, and 21 with medium/low severity. As a result, the Pentagon now has actionable data to shore up its security defenses.” (Seorg, Seorg, Says, F., & Sansone, F. Paragraph 9). These ethical hackers are also being employed by the Pentagon, the headquarters building of the united states department of defense. Not only were they big shoes to fill, but these white hat hackers also discovered 31 vulnerabilities, most of them being high risk. Black hat hackers had the full capability of hacking into the pentagon and not only putting some people’s information at risk but the whole country.

Next, we’re going to talk about two ways you can get hacked, and how to avoid it. 1-"Drive-by-download attacks happen when a user authorizes the execution of untrusted and malicious software without realizing the potential danger – e.g. clicking ‘Run’ on a malicious Java applet prompt."(10 ways to get hacked, Paragraph 6). Users can access malicious websites without realizing, these websites are usually filled with viruses that can put your computer at risk of being hacked.

2-Not all hacking is done virtually, sometimes we put our selves at risk without knowing. A USB stick that you found and plugged into your computer could infect it with malware. You can avoid this issue by not using strangers USBs, keyboard, DVD, etc.. ”It doesn’t take a targeted attack to get yourself infected with malware. If you insert random devices such as CDs/DVDs, USB drives or any other device such as found mouse/keyboard, then you’re risking an infection which may originate from an infected computer of a previous unconscious owner”. (10 ways to get hacked, Paragraph 10). There are several ways you can get hacked and have your information become vulnerable, I only touched on two ways that can happen. There are also several ways you can avoid being hacked, from being computer literate and aware of how someone can get hacked, to downloading anti-virus programs to keep your data secure.

Cybersecurity has been on the rise, making it a great career for those interested in IT. Having a great salary for their workers, and endless job opportunities in the field that you can choose from. Cybersecurity has become mandatory and no longer an option since we have made a switch into the cyber world. Today, millions of ethical hackers work for corporations protecting our information from malicious black hat hackers and also protecting our country. We also have to take that step into becoming not only computer literate but also knowing the do’s and don'ts to avoid putting our information in risky and vulnerable situations. It’s time for us to understand that we now live in a cyber world, instead of avoiding technology completely, which is almost impossible, we should learn ways to use technology safely to help us progress.