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Is Ethical Hacking a good career? This is the most commonly asked question amongst individuals who are curious about their career prospects once they have invested their time in learning Ethical Hacking.
Ethical Hacking is not your typical next-door occupation. It’s technical, thrilling, adventurous, and very promising. Ethical hackers are those who have the license to hack. They hack to preserve, not destroy. Many TV and movies feature hacker characters who hack for good causes. You might find their lives fascinating and want to give this profession a try.
The best thing is that with the right kind of training, anyone can become an ethical hacker. Find out why Ethical Hacking is a popular career option for young people today and decide whether Ethical Hacking is a good career for you.
In this article, we will cover the following topics.
What is Ethical Hacking?
Ethical Hacking refers to the process of testing the reliability and security of an organization’s systems, networks, edge devices, and servers for any intrusions and finding weaknesses in their digital structure. It protects an organization from malicious hackers manipulating systems and stealing sensitive data. It’s like being in the shoes of malicious hackers. They will discover how the system can be exploited in various ways and look for loopholes that could allow them unauthorized access. This is not to harm the company but to provide security solutions.
There are five main phases to Ethical Hacking.
- Reconnaissance – This phase outlines the goals and scope of a test.
- Monitoring – Intrusion attempts are detected, and the target’s reaction to them is recorded
- Gaining Access – Vulnerabilities can be found by attacking targets using backdoors, SQL injections, and other methods.
- Maintaining Access – The vulnerability is kept open for a longer time to gain quick access to the server.
- Covering Tracks – involves clearing cache and cookies, tampering with log files, closing all ports so that they all go unnoticed by security checks.
An ethical hacker is responsible for all phases. Hackers use various tools and techniques to find vulnerabilities. How can hackers use this information? And how do they determine the best way to fix the vulnerability. Hackers are not just found in IT. They are also found in healthcare, finance, energy, and government agencies. Ethical hackers need to be able to perform the following types of hacking when they work for organizations:
- Web application hacking
- System hacking
- Web Server hacking
- Hacking wireless networks
- Social Engineering
Is Ethical Hacking a Good Career?
The three important questions that professionals ask when considering a career change are demand, salary, and the long-term prospects of this field?
Let’s start with demand. Businesses will continue to embrace digital transformation and collect more data. To ensure that the results they desire are delivered, companies require Ethical Hacking. The demand for ethical hackers will only increase in the near future.
CNBC highlighted the results of the ISC2 survey, which showed that there were 2.8 million professionals in cybersecurity globally. There is also a shortage of approximately 4 million skilled workers to defend organizations effectively. This shows you how high the demand for cyber security professionals, including ethical hackers, is worldwide.
Let’s now talk about the future salary prospects. The same ISC2 survey mentioned that the average annual salary for cyber security professionals was USD 90,000. According to Salary.com, the median annual salary for ethical hackers is USD 99,567 in the US. You can also increase your potential salary by getting industry-leading training and obtaining cyber security certifications such as the Certified Ethical Hacker Certification (CEH).
What Are the Benefits of an Ethical Hacking Career?
Hacking is now arguably one of the most essential skills in business. Cybercrime is a significant concern for organizations. They go to great lengths to stop hackers from entering their systems. This can often mean hiring an ethical hacker to perform a penetration test and find vulnerabilities in their systems. It’s the same thing as a criminal hacker. The hacker reports his findings to the organization, which allows them to make changes before it is too late.
White-hat hacking or Ethical Hacking is a rewarding, essential, and well-paid career. As more organizations recognize the need to improve or expand their cyber security, the demand for hacking skills grows. To fulfill the role, you will need to be qualified, but this can be done easily with the help of a solid training program, a lot of discipline, and some investment of time.
5 Reasons that make Ethical Hacking a Great Career
1) Everybody needs it.
Everybody needs an ethical hacker. A skilled, ethical hacker is in demand globally. The CEH certification, for example, is valid in more than 145 countries. This makes it possible for you to be employed anywhere in the world. You also have the opportunity to explore new industries here, as cybersecurity professionals are required in nearly every sector of modern society.
2) Job Satisfaction.
Hacking into networks, servers or organizations is what draws most people to Ethical Hacking. As a white-hat hacker, you will enjoy a day filled with adrenaline. You will leave the job feeling fulfilled and proud to have helped a company stay safe. It is rare to find a job that gives you the opportunity to prevent an unfortunate incident.
3) Multitude of options.
This profession is for people who enjoy exploring new possibilities and expanding their work scope. Your training in Ethical Hacking will give you excellent opportunities to further your education and specialize. You will be amazed at the new technologies that are being developed every year. There are many job opportunities for ethical hackers. This is something that not all people can boast about in their chosen field of work.
4) Excellent pay.
An ethical hacker can easily earn more than $100,000 per year. Ethical hackers are some of the most highly-paid professionals within cybersecurity. They also make up the majority of the information technology industry’s highest-paid professionals. You can even make a living as a bug bounty hunter, which is finding security holes in organizations.
5) Great future.
It would be an understatement to say that cybersecurity’s future is bright. The cybersecurity market is expected to reach $248.6 million by 2023. This means that your career growth will follow a steep upwards trend and that you will continue to grow in value as a professional. Your career will never stagnate if you continue to learn and keep up with the digital ecosystem.
Skills required to become an Ethical Hacker.
An ethical hacker must be skilled in networking, database management, operating systems, and soft skills, as they will need to communicate security concerns to the company. A good understanding of the following skills is essential for an ethical hacker.
- Network traffic sniffing
- Orchestrate various network attacks
- Exploit buffer overflow vulnerabilities
- SQL injection
- Cracking and Password Guessing
- Session hijacking, spoofing
- DNS spoofing
- Understanding of programming languages
A good ethical hacker should also be creative because black-hat hackers are always coming up with new ways to exploit systems. It is the responsibility of an ethical hacker to prevent and detect such breaches.
Conclusion.
Ethical Hacking can be a huge career opportunity. Data breaches are becoming more severe every day. Professionals who can prevent cyberattacks and ensure that security best practices are followed are highly sought after. The CEH certification is a beneficial credential for your career in this field. To prepare for the certification, you can enroll in an online course on Ethical Hacking.
Ethical Hacking is indeed a great career choice.
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