Companies ranging from SMEs to Multinationals are worried about hackers and are keen to beat them to it when it comes to finding ways to penetrate their system.
The process of Ethical Hacking is a lengthy and time consuming procedure which requires the ‘hacker' to be meticulous throughout each stage of the investigation. This can involve a number of different stages, depending on the needs of the organisation in question.
One option is to carry out a full audit of the organisation's IT practice. The investigator will look at how secure the system is and will chat to staff about the way in which they are able to access sensitive material and how they protect their access details. They may even pose as a potential hacker and attempt to convince members of staff to allow them access. The investigation process may also involve testing the system from a remote perspective by attempting to hack in over the internet.
The process attempts to unearth weaknesses and vulnerabilities by viewing the system through the eyes of the hacker. The next step would be to assess appropriate targets, gather information about the network, test systems and services for known vulnerabilities and provide analysis and reporting.
It is also important that a penetration tester checks if they can erase or cover the marks that have been created in earlier stages of the test, so that they know what measures could be taken by a genuine hacker.
One of CCL-Forensics' Senior Analysts, is a Certified Hacking Forensic Investigator and has completed a number of ethical hacking cases, please contact us for further information.