So as we back again to our previous topic about different
kinds of hackers and what are their level, I’m going to share to you the mostly
type of hat usually used in hacking community. This hat is the way how they
recognize on how they behave on their hacking skills.
Let’s start on White Hat. Before, I thought that hat are
just something you wear as for style, for weather or if you just want to have
hat on your head but when it comes to computer system and security as like for
Linux and Red Hat, hat can be categorized into three – the White, Black and
Grey Hat. White hat as a start for our topic are the ones who are considered as
ethical hackers. There are lot of terms for white hat and based on the article
from SecPoint: What
is a White Hacker they are also known as sneakers, or even white knights. And
from their definition, they are information and cyber security specialists who
are well-versed in system examination, penetration testing, and many other
network analysis approaches that guarantee the safety and integrity of many a
company's information system. The sneakers appellation in particular refers to
white hats who are actually employed by companies or organizations as network security
professionals of sorts.
The National Security Agency (NSA) offers certifications to
these hackers such as the CNS 4011, which covers professional and principled
hacking techniques and team management. On that note, an entire group of these
experts are referred to by the CNS 4011 as red teams or tiger teams if they're
acting as aggressors or invaders, and as blue teams if they're acting as defenders
or patch makers.
White Hat Hackers are known for their reasonable hacking on one’s
system. They don’t want to harm or take advantage of the company or system they
hack because they just want to share what they notice for the improvement of it
and help without any change in return. It just about the company’s owner what
action will he or she plan after knowing it from the white hats hacker. There are
times, they recruit those white hat hackers and join to their team on the
system and security department. The idea about white hat and black hat was formulated in the presence of the black and white western genre of movies and television in which this white and black dichotomy is sometimes played out in the costuming, based on the wiseGEEK article what is White Hat? “White hats are a good person, a rescuer, a savior, or simply someone who upholds the law and does the right thing.”
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| Black and white western genre of movies and television |
There are lot of people who considered as white hat hackers.
A slideshow about 12
"White Hat" hackers you should know by Ellen Messmer revealed some
of them. For more info about it, you can click the hyperlink I include in the
title and their pictures were also there for references.
Even in the Philippines, Raymond Nuñez is one of the
white hat hacker or security professional. When the Cyber crime law was became
the hit topic around the web he is one of those who helps companies defend
against Internet attacks, says “some
portions of the cybercrime law could be prone to abuse.” You can watch the video
of it from ANC Presents: Cybercrime, October 10, 2012 ('White
hat' hacker: Cybercrime law prone to abuse).
Hackers are not all mean. Sometimes, they just want to
examine and experiment something that can contribute for future malwares and
other issues about security. Imagine without those white hat hackers, do you
think we can still have safe connection and privacy about our account
credentials? Yeah we cannot say we have secured privacy but at least we can set
it in terms we can still customize what we want to share to others or to
everyone through web. It just a matter of appreciation to those ethical hackers
because they also help other companies so they will know what specific task
they should put more security to avoid system failure and destruction of their
databases. |
| Apple Logo |
Some of the biggest company hires white hat hackers on their
company and one of them is Apple. There is a news about Apple
hires white hat hacker who helped Microsoft probe and secure Windows Vista
by The Next Web. You can read it for
yourself since the link here can be accessible for everyone.
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| Control-Alt-Hack card game |
While I’m reading and searching for other articles on the
web that I can connect with my topic here, I found also an interesting site on
which it is a card game but not just an ordinary game. This was released only
last year and they called it Control-Alt-Hack: White hat hacking for fun and
profit. Based on the article, Card
game turns you into White Hat hacker by Alpha Doggs, “Although the new Control-Alt-Hack card game
from a team of University of Washington computer scientists does expose you to
enough computer security concepts that you probably will pick up a few learning along the way, and the game makers say it could be used in computer
science classes to introduce students to security topics.” In this game, you
and your fellow players work for Hackers, Inc., a small, elite computer
security company of ethical (a.k.a., white hat) hackers who perform security
audits and provide consultation services. Their motto? "You Pay Us to Hack You." You can read more of this on
their site Control-Alt-Hack
card website.
As I end the discussion about white hat hacker and move on
our next blog post about black hat, we can learned from this articles that
there are still some actions on which you cannot really determine if the white
hat hackers are really white hat hackers or why the black hat hackers before become
white hat hackers. Still it is just a matter of choice but as long as there is
a professional ethics on how you do some things and skills you learned, hacking
can be considered good in some different way.
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