Hacking Vs Ethical Hacking

Hacking is the process of identifying and exploiting weakness in a system or a network to gain unauthorized access to data and system resources. It can also be defined as an unauthorized intrusion into the information systems/networks by an attacker by compromising the security. Example of Hacking: Exploiting the weakness of default password to gain access to the data stored inside the system.

Ethical Hacking sometimes called as Penetration Testing is an act of intruding/penetrating into system or networks to find out threats, vulnerabilities in those systems which a malicious attacker may find and exploit causing loss of data, financial loss or other major damages.  The purpose of ethical hacking is to improve the security of the network or systems by fixing the vulnerabilities found during testing. Ethical hackers may use the same methods and tools used by the malicious hackers but with the permission of the authorized person for the purpose of improving the security and defending the systems from attacks by malicious users.

Ethical hackers are expected to report all the vulnerabilities and weakness found during the process to the management.