Ethical Hacker Tutorials Guide for Beginners

Introduction

Ethical hackers are in great demand these days, and this demand is only going high as the severity and cost of cyber attacks continues to surge. As reported by the Official Annual Cybercrime Report, the annual global cost of cybercrime will exceed $6 trillion by this year, that is 2X the cost ($3 trillion) from 2015. 

 Organizations looking for skilled and certified ethical hackers are willing to pay a high payout. The average salary of a certified ethical hacker is $90,000 per year, this salary range can go beyond the $120,000 range for experienced professionals.  

It is no surprise, an ethical hacker has become a rewarding career option for a lot of people across the world.

In this ethical hacker tutorials guide blog, you will be learning beginner’s concepts that are required for you to get started as an ethical hacker. We’ll be discussing the following topics-

• Overview on Cybersecurity, cryptography, and cryptanalysis
• Stages of ethical hacking & complete ethical hacker tutorials
• Ethical Hacking basics: What tools can you use to perform ethical hacking?
• What techniques can you use to perform ethical hacking?
• What you can do legally? What you cannot do legally?
• What is an ethical hacking course? And, why is taking an Ethical hacking course necessary?

Before we go in-depth on an ethical hacking tutorial, first let’s understand the concept of cybersecurity and cryptography. 

Cybersecurity and Cryptography

The first board is cryptography and the second is cybersecurity.

Cybersecurity is tied in with guaranteeing your clients don't do inept things, it is an IT job and each organization now needs them.

Cryptography is the specialty of figuring content into a mixed-up design. In case your information falls into an inappropriate hand, you can remain calm as long as it is all around scrambled. Just the individual with the decoding key will have the option to see the information. An ethical hacker is increasingly inspired by the working of algorithms that let him decipher the information without the key. This is called cryptanalysis.

Cryptanalysis is the investigation of breaking down data frameworks so as to contemplate the concealed parts of the systems. Cryptanalysis is utilized to breach cryptographic security systems and access the substance of encoded messages, regardless of whether the cryptographic key is unknown. Approaches like Brute force, Dictionary attacks, and Rainbow table attacks have all originated from cryptanalysis.

You should not be planning new cryptographic calculations except if you are a scholastic, or working in a group with scholastics.

We are currently living in an area of digitization. Whether it is a booking of a hotel room or ordering some dinner or even booking a cab, we are constantly using the internet and inherently generating data. This data is generally stored on the cloud which is basically a huge data server or data center that you can access online. Also, an array of devices is used to access this data.

“Russian hackers are the fastest.”

“300,000 new malware is created every day.”

Read: How to Become Cyber Security Expert

Ethical Hacker Tutorials Guide for Beginners: Stages of Hacking

Level 1 - Reconnaissance: It is the demonstration of get-together of data identified with insight and starter information of your objective to get ready for attack in a superior manner. It can be done either effectively or passively (Network, IP address, DNS records). Hackers will invest the greater part of the energy at this level.

Level 2 - Scanning: It is an earlier stage to propelling the attack. At this level, we examine open ports, services and so forth. The tools utilized by the hacker during the checking would be port scanners, sweepers, dialers, and vulnerability scanners.

Level 3 - Gaining Access: The outline of the targeted system will be prepared from levels 1 and 2. At this level, we obtain entrance for the targeted system by getting to one or more network devices to remove the data from the target.

Level 4 - Maintain Access: At this level, the hacker will be in stealth mode to abstain from getting captured while working in the host environment. When the programmer obtains entrance, he lays the way for future assaults and violations by making the objective solidified. Hacker likewise verifies the way by some other detour getting to with rootkits, secondary passages, and Trojans.

Level 5 - Covering Tracks: At this level, the hacker covers his track so as to get captured and recognized by the digital workforce or cyber personnel. He evacuates proof of hacking to keep away from legitimate activities. Hacker evacuates all log files, IDS (tunneling conventions, steganography, modify log records)

These are the different levels discussed in most of the ethical hacker tutorials.

Do you know, “Multi-factor authentication and encryption are the biggest hacker obstacles.”

Cyber Threats

A). Physical Threats

Under the hacking tutorial, Physical threats are further divided into three categories.

1. Internal e.g. hardware fire, faulty power supply, internal hardware failures, etc.
2. External e.g. floods, fires, earthquakes, etc.
3. Human e.g. vandalism, arson, accidental errors, etc.

B). Non-Physical Threats

Non-physical threats include every threat that has no physical manifestation. They are also known as logical threats. Below is a picture of the most common non-physical threats:

What Tools can you use to Perform Ethical Hacking?

Below is the list of tools used in hacking as per most of the ethical hacker tutorials guide: 

“Cybercriminals could view your stored data on the phone, including identity and financial information.”

Read: Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) Salary Guide: Explore Potential Growth Opportunities In Cyber Security

What Techniques can you use to Perform Ethical Hacking?

When you check through the hacking tutorial, you find hackers utilize various sorts of procedures. The recognizable ones are referenced underneath.

• Password Cracking - Recovering passwords transmitted by means of PCs
• Vulnerability Scanner - Network checking for the known shortcoming
• Spoofing Attack – It involves bogus websites, to be trusted by clients for information breaching
• Packet Sniffer - Apps that distinguish data packets for data or passwords seen in travel by means of networks
• Trojan Horse - It goes about as indirect access for an intruder to access the system
• Rootkit - It gives a set of projects to have authority over OS with genuine administrators
• Keyloggers - Used to record every keystroke in the machine for gathering later
• Viruses - These are self-imitating executable programs without anyone else into various documents

So, these are the techniques generally mentioned in the ethical hacker tutorials. Next, we will learn how to do hacking in a legal way and how to go for learning to hack for beginners. 

Learning to Hack for Beginners: What you can do Legally?

Laws change from place to place. You should be aware of what is allowed and what is not allowed. It comes under the hacking basics. Various tools that are required for white hat hacking might be illegal to use. You should contact local law enforcement agencies before installing hacking tools because Governments are keeping eagle eyes against cybercrimes and are fully supporting cyber-laws and are more serious about punishment for cybercrime.

What you cannot do Legally as per the Ethical Hacker Tutorials?

Accessing computers without permission of the owner is illegal. Other illegal actions include-

• Installing worms or viruses
• Denial of Services attacks
• Denying users access to network resources

Be careful about your actions and do not prevent customers from doing their jobs. Following are the ways you can avoid a legal action as per the hacking tutorial-

• Using a contract is a good way to perform risky ethical hacking
• Getting everything in writing will be useful in court if required
• Always have an attorney over your contract before reading or signing it
• Get express (written, ideally) authorization to endeavor to infiltrate a company’s framework
• Be aware of all the organization's rules and policies
• Advise the organization all things considered and vulnerabilities found
• Leave the system in the manner it was discovered, that is, don't make any shortcomings that could be exploited in the future
• Keep a written record of what is done on the system
• Try not to disregard the laws of a nation by, for instance, accomplishing something that ruptures copyrights, licensed innovation, protection laws, etc.

“Know that no bank or online payment system will ever ask you for your login credentials, social security number, or credit card numbers by means of email.”

So, these are the terms you can do and cannot do in hacking and that’s it on beginners guide to hacking.  With the increasing number of cyber threats, the demand for ethical hackers is rapidly increasing. Below are the insights on the global demand of ethical hackers. 

Salaries of an Ethical Hacker

As a career, ethical hacking can be very rewarding. As indicated by InfoSec Institute, compensations for certified ethical hackers in 2019 extended from $24,760 to $111,502, with a reward payout of up to $17,500. A 2019 Indeed overview found that ethical hacking pay rates ran from roughly $67,703 every year for a network analyst to $115,592 every year for a penetration tester.

Here are some latest ethical hacker certification salary snapshots from popular websites:

• The average salary of a penetration tester is $116,323 on Ziprecruiter.com  
• The average salary of a penetration and vulnerability tester is $104,000 on Cyberseek.org 
• The average salary of an ethical hacker is $99,081 on Salary.com 
• The average salary of a Certified ethical hacker is $81,179 on Payscale.com 

Considering the above trends in ethical hacker certification salary, it can be said that Ethical Hackers are highly paid and are in huge demand globally. And, no doubt why most of the new graduates look for ethical hacking for beginners. Now, you are clear on the salary, let’s  explore the prerequisite needed to be an ethical professional so that you can get a better idea about what skills and qualifications you should have to make yourself an ideal fit for this job.

Do you know what the average salary of  Cybersecurity professionals? 

Ethical Hacker Roadmap: Where to Start?

Patience is another important skill you need to cultivate if you want to begin with the ethical hacking for beginners and embark on a career as an ethical hacker. There is immense potential to achieve both in a short span of time if you make efforts with the right approach! To help you achieve that position, here is the stepwise process on Ethical Hacking career path: 

Certification Details: Why Taking an Ethical Hacking Course is Necessary?

These days, the demand for ethical Hackers is touching the sky due to the insufficient workforce, which makes the career opportunities and the salaries very attractive. Many professionals intend to enter and scale up in the industry. But just going through some ethical hacker tutorials is not enough. One of the recommended approaches, to begin with, includes Certification Courses. 

The average ethical hacker salary in the USA is $120,000 per year. While it can go up to $156,780 per year for an experienced professional with ethical hacking certification.

Here are some of the best Ethical Hacking courses that are worth your investment and time.

Certified Ethical Hacking Training & Certification:  This ethical hacker training course is designed to help you through the best hacking practices for writing codes. It helps you to learn protecting your company from security breaches, master in advanced network packet analysis and a lot more. 

Cybersecurity Training & Certification: This course is more like a cybersecurity and hacking tutorial that helps you build a strong foundation in the domain. It is focused on different Cybersecurity essentials including Security basics, cryptography, network security, secure an app, data Security, user Security, Cyberattacks, user access & identity management, etc. 

Getting certified with Ethical Hacker Beginner Course and Advanced Training is an ideal way to make the most of this increasing demand. We hope these hacking courses will help you with enhancing your skills and thus your profile. 

A company may enlist an ethical hacker to endeavor to hack the computer framework inside specific limitations set by the organization and nation law. An organization may prepare their staff to play out this job in-house. Once in a while, ethical hackers are just self-broadcasted "nerds" who hack without anyone else's time, yet not dangerously. These sorts of programmers do it "for amusement only" and, in the event that they're abundance trackers, even get paid if they discover a proviso in an association's framework.

In the event that you choose to experience white-hat hacker training, you'll be in a phenomenal organization. For example, a little-known reality about Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee, most popular as the creator of the World Wide Web, is that he was a hacker in his initial years. As per Investopedia, "As a student at Oxford University, Berners-Lee was prohibited from utilizing the college PCs after he and a companion were discovered hacking to access limited regions."

One of the most famous white cap hackers in recent times is Kevin Mitnick, portrayed once by the US Department of Justice, as "the most wanted computer criminal in United States history." After spending time in jail for unlawful hacking, he improved and turned into a paid ethical hacking expert for various Fortune 500 organizations, just as for the FBI.

Final Words on Hacking Tutorial & Career Guide

Going through the different ethical hacker tutorials is a good start but the use of such techniques won’t make you a hacker, or an expert. It might make you a script kiddie. It usually takes years of study and experience to earn respect in the hacker’s community. It’s a hobby, a lifestyle, and an attitude. It’s a drive to figure out how things work.

Formal ethical hacking courses from a professional institution is perfect for hands-on training in a particular specialty.  On the other hand, numerous hackers advocate self-learning, it is mainly suitable for those looking for guide on how to hack for beginners. The benefit of this is you get the opportunity to find your field specifically noteworthy. Overall, the Ethical Hacker role is an excellent career option if you are looking for growth and immense earning potential and want to stay relevant as per the market demand. 

Hopefully, you found this ethical hacker tutorials guide blog helpful in understanding ethical hacking basics, how to become an ethical hacker, required certifications, skillset, career growth, salary range, and other aspects.  

Happy Hacking but stay legal!

Read: 8 Quick Reasons Why You Should Have CISSP Certification