Ethical Hacker

The English language is full of oxymorons. For example, “act naturally,” “alone in a crowd,” “bad health,” “young adult,” and “only choice,” just to name a few. In the information technology industry, probably the biggest oxymoron is “Ethical Hacker.”

When you’re an Ethical Hacker, you’re just like any other hacker: You use your advanced computer programming skills to find and exploit vulnerabilities in computer systems so you can gain access to unauthorized data. While unethical hackers use their skills for evil, however — to steal information or money, for example, or sometimes just to cause trouble — you use yours for good, helping companies protect their systems from people who are trying to infiltrate them.

A security expert who’s typically employed by IT consultancies, you’re a so-called “white hat” hacker who’s hired to fight “black hat” hackers. As a result, you use the same approaches and strategies as unethical hackers, thinking like criminals with the ultimate goal of defeating them. What makes you “ethical,” of course, is that you’re breaking into your employers’ and clients’ computer systems with their knowledge and blessing.

With that in mind, you spend your days at the computer, using agreed-upon “rules of engagement” to remotely break into computers for the purpose of “stealing” data. Based on your findings — whether you can break into the system, and how — you then recommend increased security measures that will successfully “plug” the holes you used to get inside.

It’s kind of like playing a 21st-century game of “ Cops and Robbers”: Although you’re the robber, it’s just make-believe!