Information technology can be considered as the driving force behind the new economic revolution that has increased worker productivity, igniting a great change similar to Thomas Edison's; electricity. The emergence of computers and the internet altered the globe, and the Information Technology business has expanded dramatically over the last two decades. As a result of the rising number of attacks on information systems, personal security via the internet has become a top priority. A hacker is a person who studies and detects vulnerabilities in a security system and gains access to use it either to alter data or completely dismantle the system a process known as cyber attack (DarkNet, 2006). The attack can be in the form of virus, worm, malware or Trojan among others that target information systems, infrastructure, the computer network structure or personal computers as well.
Cyber attacks target governments, corporates and even individuals as long as the hacker has a ‘gaining advantage.' A case in point is the recent hack of PayPal, a commercial online site in December 2010. The PayPal site shut down a Wiki Leaks service which was used to raise funds. The shutdown was based on a violation of the agreed terms between the two companies. The shutdown led to boycott from the Wikileaks forum which gave hackers an opportunity to attack PayPal (Church, et al., 2010). As such, there is a need for all organizations to come up with means to secure their systems entirely.
The media has painted a negative picture to the general audience that the word “hacker” bring a wave of defrauding or intrusion of privacy to harass people, which is a misconception. Although there are such types of hackers, they only occupy a small percentage of the total community. However, the majority of the hackers perform ethical tasks considering that they can be imprisoned for gaining access to unauthorized systems.
Pros and Cons of Hiring a Hacker
Hackers are creators of computer programs who use different types of code, hardware, and brain skills to solve complex algorithms of software related problems (Cross, 2006).In many cases, organizations call upon hackers to test and try an attack in to rate the levels of security in their information system.
Pros of Hiring a Hacker
Hiring a hacker can be advantageous in that, they design and make the latest security systems for specific needs of the organization (Rivlin, 2006). A system developed by a team of hackers will mainly focus on the safety aspect of the software. It helps the team to make a system that is as attack proof as possible, and this ensures information security.
When a company procures a system, they can consult a hacker for them to make some improvement to the desired level of safety. Bugs can cause failure of the system and hackers must have scripts to modify these small sections of code to make the system work. These scripts are known as patches that aim to fix any vulnerable areas. Hackers introduce anti-viruses to scan for unwanted suspicious programs running in computer systems and infrastructure.
Cons of Hiring a Hacker
Hiring hackers to create a system can be very unsafe as it can be compared to adopting a dangerous pet snake; chances are it may bite you. In past worst case scenarios, hackers have even attacked government sites such as theWhite House and the Department of Health and Human Services in 2014 (Walters, 2015). In such cases, the hackers responsible are caught and taken to jail for multiple counts of cyber crime. The criminal record makes it hard for a hacker to be contacted by future IT companies.
Not all hackers can test your system; some hackers can decide to be unethical and cause organization a lot of harm by stealing vital information from the organization for personal gain. Such kind of behavior has led to the lack of trust between companies and hackers. The organizations will not fully believe that the hacker will not interfere by creating problems in the system such that they end up being dependent on the hackers for IT support. As such, it leads to the loss of productivity if the organization doesn’t meet the demands of the hacker.
There is a general fear of hackers due to their tremendous ability. However, companies still feel that ethical hackers can be an asset to their business activities since they are know how to solve immense system problems. The hackers create systems that are very hard to break through even by other attackers. However, organizations should take precaution when hiring them by performing background checks for the individuals to ensure that the best consultants available.
The “Dark Side” of the Law
There is nothing like a too experienced hacker. In hacking, there are essential techniques that keep changing as security threats are also dynamic (DarkNet, 2006). Therefore a real hacker should be ready for emerging techniques of the security systems and the different designs of the infrastructure. The dark side keeps changing and therefore, hackers keep empowering themselves. As such, there is no too much experience about the dark side.
References
Church, F., Hughes, N., Sola, D. D., Nyberg, R. A., Turner, R., Pepitone, J., & Ahmed, A. (2010, December 9). Pro-Wikileaks Hackers Change Target to PayPal. Retrieved from CNN News: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/12/09/world.wikileaks/
Cross, T. (2006). Academic Freedom and the Hacker Ethic. Communications of the ACM, 49(6), 37-40.
DarkNet. (2006, April 17). Top 15 Security/ Hacking Tools and Utilities. Retrieved from Darknet: http://www.darknet.org.uk/2006/04/top-15-securityhacking-tools-utilities/
Rivlin, G. (2006, July 31). The Sniffer vs. The Cybercrooks. Retrieved from The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/31/business/yourmoney/the-sniffer-vs-the-cybercrooks.html?_r=0
Walters, R. (2015, November 19). Continued Federal Cyber Breaches in 2015. Retrieved from The Heritage Foundation: http://www.heritage.org/cybersecurity/report/continued-federal-cyber-breaches-2015
