Gavin Ridges

Professor Armistead

CYSE201S

12/3/2022

            Ethical hacking can be a great way for a company to make progress on their security system within their domain without the risk of an outside source breaching through. Ethical hackers look for vulnerabilities that they can report back to an organization. If it were not for ethical hackers, it would be more likely that a malicious hacker would easily gain access to an organization’s resources for some type of gain or recognition.

            For a company looking to improve their security, ethical hacking can too be dangerous for them. “Doing things like injection attacks, broken authentication, security misconfigurations, use of components with known vulnerabilities, sensitive data exposure.” (Synopsys) It can be scary allowing people to go into your systems and look through all the information that you have. These “ethical hackers” have the same knowledge that a regular hacker would have, and it is important to remember that they are not much different.

            When taking courses for this career as well as being in the career can mean that those people must have the proper guidance while in the career or learning about it. “The ethics of ethical hacking is a very important part of every profession. The code of conduct guides members of a profession in their practice. Professional ethical hacking is also known as professional standards or professional norms. Professional ethics are based on universal moral principles and values. They act as guidelines for professional conduct, which can help professionals deal with ethical dilemmas in their careers.” (Jain 2022) Those working in this career must remember that they must stay between the lines, remaining in the legal lines. Yes, most of the time you are “thinking like a hacker,” but its important that you are not above the law.

            Human Factor Programs can play a beneficial part in many white-hat hacker’s lives. Undergoing training that ensures these hackers are repetitively being shown the rights and wrongs with their line of work is very important. Employees within all cyber security are the weakest link in security. The reason it is important in ethical hacking is because at any moment one of these workers can turn on their team and switch sides. This would reside in data taken and likely money lost. Humans make mistakes, an ethical hacker might not catch something that is a vulnerability and end up allowing a hacker to breach a company’s system. Human factor is essential and protecting the system is even more important.

            In this career, continuously learning is a necessity for those that want to implement the strongest possible security. Technology is outgrowing humans at a rapid rate, not allowing humans to ever catch up. Though if all positions are filled within this field, if workers continue learning, and we are all focusing on our own jobs, there should not be any problems. A major problem within this field is people losing the passion and willingness to solve problems and continue to want to learn. If our ethical hackers are losing interest, this will be an issue.  Testing and configuring a perfect security system is vital when trying to protect all larger and smaller-scale companies.

            The social dimensions of cybersecurity are critical thinking, communication, writing skills, problem solving skills, and teamwork. As a white-hat hacker, this may be the most important aspect of the job. All five of these dimensions must be used in this field or you could leave a system defenseless. Ethical hackers are expected to report anything they do or find back to their employer. They also must communicate within their team to come up with solutions, this is where teamwork buds together. You must be able to critically think, and problem solve, an issue is going to come up that you do not know have to patch. You may be in the field and its essential that you come up with an answer. Lastly, being able to compose reports, synthesis data, and creating policies are the few ways that someone in this career would be looking forward to when writing.

            One marginalized group that is a need in cybersecurity are females. “8.5% of hackers are women and 91.5% of hackers are men” (Zippia). It is obvious woman are needed in this field. For diversification, not only in answers but also how they analyze data, lead a team/group, and their communicative skills. “Women earn 88¢ for every $1 earned by men. Male income $99,236, female-income $87,737” (Zippia). “Some analysts have explained away this persistent disparity due to variables such as educational attainment, women leaving the workforce at higher rates, occupational segregation and work experience.” (ISC2, 2021) Organizations that can discard the unequal pay would be able to attract a more diverse workforce. “To start, organizations must set standards for how pay is determined based on education level, relevant experience, responsibilities, and job performance. Next, they need to audit employee pay and identify pay gaps across roles and job levels. Once an organization understands where disparities exist against pay standards, it’s vital to course correct.” (ISC2 2021)

            Another marginalized group would be any other race than white people. “The most common ethnicity among hackers is White, which makes up 72.6% of all hackers. Comparatively, there are 9.1% of the Hispanic or Latino ethnicity and 8.0% of the Black or African American ethnicity.” (Zippia) Having too many of the same people can cause many different errors and disagreements or there may be too much of the same answers. Diversifying these groups brings in different perspectives and we can start to understand the different cultures that attackers have.

Works Cited

“What Is Ethical Hacking and How Does It Work?” Edited by Synopsis, Ethical Hacking, https://www.synopsys.com/glossary/what-is-ethical-hacking.html.

Jain, Aditi. “Ethical Hacking Issues: Professional, Legal, Social and Cultural.” Knowledgehut, 4 July 2022, www.knowledgehut.com/blog/security/ethical-hacking-issues.

St-Jean, Chris. “Everything You Need to Know About Ethical Hacking as a Career [Updated 2019].” Infosec Resources, 14 Oct. 2020, resources.infosecinstitute.com/topic/ethical-hacking-career.

Hacker Demographics and Statistics [2022]: Number of Hackers in the US. 9 Sept. 2022, www.zippia.com/hacker-jobs/demographics.

Chamlou, Nina. “Why Diversity in Cybersecurity Matters | CyberDegrees.org.” Explore Cybersecurity Degrees and Careers | CyberDegrees.org, 16 Nov. 2022, www.cyberdegrees.org/resources/diversity-in-cybersecurity.