Undersanding Cybersecurity And Ehical.

Introduction

In the contemporary society, many activities are carried out online due to the convenience created. While this has greatly reduced the cost of operations for many companies and increased their reach of clients, it has created a great threat in the form of hacking. Many companies have been exposed to hacking and this has created a lot of losses for the company. Additionally, there is a lot of money lost worldwide due to the unauthorized access to company records and bank accounts. Hackers are usually knowledgeable and use their skills to manipulate people by exposing them to the internet or by syphoning funds from their accounts. To avoid these situations most companies have opted to improve cybersecurity, which can be described as technology, practices and processes which are applied by companies in an attempt to guard their information against unauthorized access. To ensure that the system is safe enough, companies usually hire ethical hackers who are supposed to check for vulnerabilities in a system and address them to ensure the safety of the company. However, it has been hard for companies to understand the need of hiring hackers given that they can also expose the company's data. Through the research, the scope of the ethical hacker will be clearly understood and problems identified will be addressed and recommendations will be made.

Statement of the Problem

As earlier stated through hacking, companies have incurred a lot of losses and lost the faith of their clients. As a result, most of them have been employing ethical hackers to protect the data in the companies. Notably, ethical hackers, who are also known as white cap hackers, work in the same way as unethical workers, who are also known as black hat hackers. Therefore, this makes it hard for the company to expose all the security facts to the ethical hackers hence limiting their operations. Additionally, even if ethical hackers have the same knowledge with the black hat hackers, the latter has an advantage because they do not follow any ethical guidelines when hacking. Ethical hackers need to get permissions to be allowed to access some documents while the unethical hackers usually access anything they need to accomplish their plan. As a result, black hat hackers usually have a bigger advantage when compared with the ethical hackers. Moreover, it is hard to determine the integrity of the ethical hackers (Kumar, Agarwal and Bhardwaj 2015). In the capitalistic world, many people are seeking to have a better living and this has encouraged frauds and corruption. While in the physical world the government can easily reveal such issues, in the online world it can be hard to access such an act. As hackers, they can be able to cover their track completely or even create a different identity through which they fraud the company. With this in mind, it has been hard for companies to have a perfect cybersecurity system. The research will be based on the following research questions that will seek to address the relationship between cybersecurity and ethical hacking.

Research Questions

How can a company ensure that the ethical hackers employed have the integrity required to focus on the company's interests Do the ethical conditions of hacking limits the white hat hackers in securing the company's systems? How can the company protect the information presented to the ethical hackers from misuse by the latter?

Literature Review

Several studies have been carried out in an attempt to understand the concept of cybersecurity and ethical hacking. Through the studies, several breakthroughs have made in the integration of cybersecurity and ethical hacking. Munjal (2014), explains ethical hacking to be a way of realizing the vulnerabilities in a computer network. The author notes that hacking has been perceived to be morally and legally wring therefore making it hard for people to understand the concept of ethical hacking. On the contrary, the emergence of ethical hackers has been fruitful in protecting the organization's information. However, the author notes that 90% of the attacks that happened to a company are usually as a result of an inside job and this depicts that the company is usually vulnerable from the inside (Munjal 2014). As a result, it is important to determine the true intention of the hackers as they have a lot of impact on the organization. She encouraged companies to ensure that they ensure that they hire certified hackers as they usually lack any record of fraud.
Another research done by Chowdappa, Lakshmi and Kumar (2014), explains the importance of ethical hackers in a company. Notably, companies can protect its information from unwanted access if they ensure that their systems are fit and secure from them. One of the ways to do this is by testing the system for vulnerabilities by hiring ethical hackers. The hackers usually try to hack their way into the company's system and if they are successful, the company notes the discrepancies in its system. If they are unable it shows that the system is secure. The stages of hacking according to the authors include reconnaissance phase, scanning phase, owning system phase, zombie system, and evidence removal phase.
Gupta and Anand (2017) elucidate that to ensure cybersecurity an ethical hacker must be guided by a code of conduct. An ethical hacker should identify and determine the confidentiality and privacy of the data of the organization before hacking and refrain from violating the set rules. He or she should also maintain transparency with the client before and after hacking. Additionally, the intentions of the ethical hacker should be to protect the company's system. It is also important that he or she should work within the limits given by the organization and that any information realized be kept confidential despite the lure of exposing the company. From the literature review, it is evident that there are regulations that should be followed to guarantee cybersecurity.

Methodology

The research design used in the research will be qualitative and quantitative as they will all ensure that the data collected is effectively applied. Through the qualitative research, it will be possible to have the concise perspective on ethical hacking and this will lead to a credible conclusion about the issue. On the other hand, through a quantitative method, it will be possible to collect data on how the companies perceive ethical hacking and its popularity amongst companies. This will ensure that there will be little biases in the topic. The primary methods of data collection will include samples, interviews and observation. Additionally, the researcher will include secondary sources as this will create a balance in the research by creating a general view of the study. The participants of the research include hackers, both ethical and unethical, company IT managers, victims of cyber-attacks and students who are aspiring to be hackers (Kumar et al. 2015). The participants will play a crucial role in explaining the current trends in hacking and through their cooperation, it will be possible to identify a healthy relationship between the concept of ethical hacking and cybersecurity. It will also be possible to understand how different players perceive cybersecurity and how they use their position to either ensure it or compromise it. This way, it will be possible for the research paper to offer the recommendations needed to improve cybersecurity in organizations.

Ethical Considerations

When carrying out every research it is important to ensure that there are considerations made to ensure that the quality of life of the participants is not affected and the competitive advantage of companies is maintained. In the research, to have a study with least biases, it is important to ask for the participants of all the stakeholders and this includes companies, ethical hackers, unethical hackers and aspiring hackers (Hartley, Medlin and Houlik, 2017). However, there are many risks involved in such a practice because it is hard for the unethical hackers to expose themselves as they are unsure of the intentions of the research. Finding them is also an issue but by searching for companies and people that can get some information without authorization, it will be possible to find them. However, the researcher will be bound by a confidentiality agreement where the hackers will not be exposed under any circumstances. It will be crucial that the researcher will not violate that agreement as it can lead to serious legal consequences. Additionally, it is also essential to ensure that the privacy of the other participants is guaranteed. To do this, the names used for the research will be pseudo names. All the revealing information that will have been offered by the company will be discarded once the research is done and this will reduce the risk of exposure. Finally, all the participants will be given the right to withdraw from the research if they feel that it conflicts with their interests. Following these ethical guidelines will ensure that there is no bias in the research paper.

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References List

• Chowdappa, K.B., Lakshmi, S.S. and Kumar, P.P., 2014. Ethical hacking techniques with penetration testing. International journal of computer science and information technologies, 5(3), pp.3389-3393.
• Gupta, A. and Anand, A., 2017. Ethical Hacking and Hacking Attacks. International Journal of Engineering and Computer Science, 6(4).
• Hartley, R., Medlin, D. and Houlik, Z., 2017. Ethical Hacking: Educating Future Cybersecurity Professionals. In Proceedings of the EDSIG Conference ISSN (Vol. 2473, p. 3857).
• Kumar, D., Agarwal, A. and Bhardwaj, A., 2015. Ethical Hacking. International Journal of Engineering and Computer Science, 4(04).
• Munjal, M., 2014. Ethical hacking: An impact on society. Cyber Times International Journal of Technology and Management. 7. 922-931.