A certified ethical hacker (CEH) is a professional hacker who works for reputable organizations to prevent black hat hackers with potentially unlawful motives from exploiting application and system security vulnerabilities.

Ethical and criminal cybersecurity experts can use similar tactics to infiltrate systems and access data on corporate networks. The distinction is that while one wants to profit from weaknesses and vulnerabilities, the other tries to rectify them for their client’s advantage. 

White hat hackers are another term used for certified ethical hackers instead of attackers or black hats. Ethical hackers employ their hacking abilities to help potential victims and high-profile targets.

The CEH designation is awarded to those who pass the CEH examination after receiving instruction at an approved training center or through self-study. Self-study students must have two years of practical job experience in information security to back up their credentials. If you don’t have this experience, you’ll need to provide a full educational history for consideration on a case-by-case basis.

Skills Ethical Hackers Should Have

One needs to possess three main skills to become a certified ethical hacker. 

Hacking Abilities

The first skill is the ability and knowledge required to identify holes and vulnerabilities in systems. Once they get the certification, CEH specialists should not have any blind spots in the general areas of hacking.

Ingenuity

Ethical hackers also need ingenuity, which entails thinking outside the box and attempting novel network breaches. Thinking out of the box is a far larger portion of the job than it appears. Clients who hire CEHs should strive to be protected against all types of hacking. The CEH’s job is to find the holes, blind spots, and vulnerabilities that have slipped through the cracks.

Trustworthiness

Finally, ethical hackers need to be trustworthy. After all, they are entrusted with access to important company data. CEH professionals must value the ethical aspect of their job. CEHs limit their social engineering to ethical versions of it, in addition to acquiring access to sensitive or private data and keeping it private and secure. It’s ethical, for example, to leave a thumb drive in the parking lot and see whether someone picks it up and plugs it in. However, using threats of violence or violations of personal employee data is unethical and against the CEH profession’s code of ethics.

Benefits Of Hiring A Certified Ethical Hacker

A certified ethical hacker can make a big difference in your company’s cybersecurity efforts. The following is a list of how your company can benefit from a CEH.

• Finding and plugging gaps in software and systems
• Identifying open ports
• Figuring out means of evading firewalls and intrusion alert systems
• Penetration testing
• Conducting network traffic analysis
• Conducting social engineering exercises
• Educating employees and cybersecurity personnel about the latest methods of attack that cybercriminals use.

Visit ULeadNet’s blogs page if you are interested in reading about supplementing your CEH certification with another related cybersecurity certification.