Your mission — should you choose to accept it — is
to find the holes in your network before the bad guys
do. This mission will be fun, educational, and most likely
entertaining. It will certainly be an eye-opening experience.
The cool part is that you can emerge as the hero,
knowing that your company will be better protected
against malicious hacker and insider attacks and less
likely to have its name smeared across the headlines.
If you’re new to ethical hacking, this is the place to begin.
The chapters in this part get you started with information
on what to do and how to do it when you’re hacking your
own systems. Oh, and also, you find out what not to do as
well. This information will guide you through building the
foundation for your ethical hacking program to make sure
you go down the right path and don’t veer off and end up
going down a one-way dead-end street. This mission is
indeed possible — you’ve just got to get your ducks in
a row.
Little more than a decade ago, IT security was barely a newborn in
diapers. With only a handful of security professionals in 1994, few practiced
security and even fewer truly understood it. Security technologies
amounted to little more than anti-virus software and packet filtering routers
at that time. And the concept of a “hacker” came primarily from the
Hollywood movie WarGames; or more often it referred to someone with a low
golf score. As a result, just like Rodney Dangerfield, it got “no respect,” and
no one took it seriously. IT professionals saw it largely as a nuisance, to be
ignored — that is until they were impacted by it.
Today, the number of Certified Information Systems Security Professionals
(CISSP) has topped 41,000 (www.isc2.org) worldwide, and there are more
security companies dotting the landscape than anyone could possibly
remember. Today security technologies encompass everything from authentication
and authorization to firewalls and VPNs. There are so many ways to
address the security problem that it can cause more than a slight migraine
simply considering the alternatives. And the term hacker has become a permanent
part of our everyday vernacular — as defined in nearly daily headlines.
The world (and its criminals) has changed dramatically.
So what does all this mean for you, the home/end-user or IT/security professional
that is thrust into this dangerous online world every time you hit the
power button on your computer? The answer is everything. The digital landscape
is peppered with land mines that can go off with the slightest touch
or, better yet, without any provocation whatsoever. Consider some simple
scenarios:
Simply plugging into the Internet without a properly configured
firewall can get you hacked before the pizza is delivered,
within 30 minutes or less.
Opening an e-mail attachment from a family member, friend,
or work colleague can install a back door on your system,
allowing a hacker free access to your computer.
Downloading and executing a file via your Internet Messaging
(IM) program can turn your pristine desktop into a Centers
for Disease Control (CDC) hotzone, complete with the latest
alphabet soup virus.
Browsing to an innocent (and trusted) Web site can completely
compromise your computer, allowing a hacker to read
your sensitive files or, worse, delete them
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