Ethical Hacking

· Understanding hacker objectives

· Outlining the differences between ethical hackers and malicious hackers

· Examining how the ethical hacking process has come about

· Understanding the dangers that your computer systems face

· Starting the ethical hacking process

This book is about hacking ethically and the science of testing your computers and network for security vulnerabilities and plugging the holes you find before the bad guys get a chance to exploit them.

Although ethical is an often overused and misunderstood word, the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines ethical perfectly for the context of this book and the professional security testing techniques that I cover and that is, conforming to accepted professional standards of conduct. IT practitioners are obligated to perform all of the tests covered in this book aboveboard and only after permission has been obtained by the owner(s) of the systems and hence the disclaimer in the introduction.