People often get confused about the terms Cybersecurity vs Ethical Hacking. Cybersecurity is a broad term that includes various computer security mechanisms, and ethical hacking is one of them.
In today's post, we will learn the difference between Cybersecurity & Ethical Hacking.
What Is Cybersecurity?
Cyber Security refers to a collection of different skills and tools, which work together and provide the best security to users.
You have often noticed that if you want to change your password on a website, the website first verifies your identity, and then allows you to change the password after successful verification.
This is done to protect your account. And no unauthorized person can access your account.
And now let's talk about the software you have installed on your system to protect against malware attacks. The software notifies you immediately as soon as it detects any malicious activity. The goal here is the same, i.e. to make your device more secure.
All this is done with the help of risk register files. Every organization has a risk register file that contains all possible threats and their solutions, with the help of which any security breach can be prevented.
Phases Of Cybersecurity
Generally, there are four phases of cybersecurity:
- Identity: The process of identifying or understanding various cyber security threats to systems and data
- Protect: Ensuring privacy of data by following all security measures
- Detect: The process of detecting the occurrence of cyber security incidents
- React: Taking appropriate actions for cyber security incidents
A person who does all this work is called a cyber security expert۔
Cyber security experts need a strong understanding of multiple topics, and must be able to face challenges like Ransomware, alert fatigue, kill chains, phishing attacks and zero-day attacks, etc.
Now that you understand what cyber security means, let's go ahead and discuss cyber security vs hacking and learn how we can protect our systems by using ethical hacking techniques.
What Is Ethical Hacking?
Suppose you launch a new application, and take all the necessary steps to secure it. But how can you be so sure that your app is completely safe and no one can bypass its security system?
You will certainly need to test your app against all possible security breaches, and find out if the security measures you have in place are protecting your app or not.
This process of testing a system against all possible security breaches is known as ethical hacking. Ethical hacking is part of cybersecurity, which involves finding and fixing vulnerabilities within a system before a black hat hacker can attack your system and harm you.
It is the process of testing and validation of any system. Through this, the flaws in the system can be detected. And then the organization is informed about these flaws. The organization will then hire some cyber security professionals to take steps that will help prevent any data theft or fraud.
Cybersecurity experts are also called Penetration Testers.
In essence, ethical hacking is a process that bypasses a company's security system to find system flaws and fix them. Ethical hacking has various benefits, which are listed below.
- The weak points of the system can be easily found and solved through Penetration Testing.
- You can implement different security measures to address vulnerabilities to prevent security breaches.
- Ethical hacking protects your data from being stolen by black hat hackers.
- It helps protect networks with continuous monitoring.
- Customers and investors will trust your company if data and system security is well maintained.
Now you might be thinking that ethical hacking and cyber security are the same thing. Because both aim to protect the organization's security system from dangerous attacks. However, there is a difference between the two. Now we will talk about the difference between ethical hacking and cyber security. But before that we will talk on the topic of Cybersecurity vs Ethical Hacking.
Cybersecurity vs Ethical Hacking
After learning what is cybersecurity and ethical hacking, lets talk about Cybersecurity vs Ethical Hacking Although both have same purpose i.e. protecting the system and data, but there's a difference between the both.
Cyber security is a broad topic. It includes many network and information security mechanisms, such as data security, digital forensics, ethical hacking, and more. Hence, we can say that ethical hacking is a subset of cyber security.
Ethical hacking is done by 'white hat hackers' whose work to hack the system is similar to that of 'black hat' hackers, but with different intentions. In ethical hacking, the hacker hacks the system to protect it.
On the other hand, cyber security experts do not need to hack the system. Their job is to protect the system by taking all possible security measures. Simply put, ethical hackers use offensive security measures, and cyber security experts use defensive security measures.
Let's take an example here. Let's say, you've launched an application like Uber, and your app is generating and storing a lot of customer data every day. These records can be used by any hacker to carry out suspicious activities, including generating huge amounts of fake applications, accessing account details of online paying customers and more.
In such a case, the cyber security expert will try to secure the app by taking possible security measures, or notify the owner (i.e. you) about the attack.
Whereas an ethical hacker will try to attack your app. And in case of success, it will tell the ways by which the app can be attacked. And then it will also tell the possible solution.
Ethical hacking means that you intentionally hack into a system to see how the system will respond to this type of attack.
Now lets talk about cybersecurity vs ethical hacking.
Cybersecurity vs Ethical Hacking: Difference Between The Both
| Ethical Hacking | Cyber Security |
|---|---|
| The goal of ethical hacking is to find vulnerabilities in a system and report it to the owner. | Its job is to identify and resolve all security issues to protect systems and data. |
| It aims to determine how the system can be attacked. | It focuses on how to secure the system. |
| Ethical hacking is part of cyber security. | Cybersecurity is a broad term that encompasses many security techniques. |
| Penetration Tester and Security Manager play a major role in Ethical Hacking. | Cyber security includes fields like Cyber security analyst, CISO, and SOC Engineer. |
| Ethical hacking is about attacking the system. | Cyber security deals with system defense. |
| The task of ethical hacking is to report on 'how the system was hacked'. | It is responsible for who can access the system. |
| It exploits vulnerabilities or performs penetration testing to identify vulnerabilities. | It identifies problems and protects the system from security breaches. |
| The system is regularly tested to find out the flaws in it and solve the problems. | Cyber security involves regular maintenance to ensure that the security system is updated. |
Read More:
What Is Digital Forensics In Cybersecurity?
