(Newswire.net — November 4, 2021) —
Hiring a hacker online can be a simple and painless task if you know what you’re doing. For example, anyone thinking about paying a hacker to hack into Instagram, Facebook, or any other social media platform, or let’s say you made an application and wanted to test it. So simply hiring a hacker to test the penetration testing of your application is the most important step to make sure it’s ready for production.
Ethical and unethical hacking
Before we get started with the tips, the first thing to understand is the difference between ethical and unethical hacking.
Ethical hackers:
An ethical hacker’s goal is to prevent a black hat hacker from stealing data, money, or gaining access to restricted networks. In addition, ethical hackers learn how to spot potential network security risks and vulnerabilities. These types of hackers are the ones that you’ll be hiring to do your hacking.
Unethical hackers:
The goal of black hat hackers or unethical hackers, to mention a few things, is to steal important information, money, free software, get access to restricted networks. Phreaker, cracker, carder, and script kiddies are all terms used to describe different types of unethical hackers. Each with the criminal intent and goal of stealing information or money. These types of hackers you’ll always avoid.
8 brilliant tips to hire genuine hackers
Following are the tips for hiring an ethical or white-hat hacker:
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Clean your Rolodex:
Many businesses choose well-known consulting firms, which might be more expensive than smaller firms. Veteran penetration testers, on the other hand, say word of mouth and recommendations from trustworthy colleagues are the most reliable means to find skilled and ethical penetration testers (hackers). -
Budget:
The cost of external pen testing varies greatly depending on the size of the environment and the duration of the engagement. Many companies offer “commoditized” engagements that last one to ten days, cost $10,000 to $12,000, and include a list of attacks with screenshots and sample code, as well as prioritized work and contributions. Open-ended contracts to continuously scan all portions of a huge corporation can cost millions of dollars at the high end. A one-to-two-week effort that includes both external and internal attacks is usually suggested. -
Regularly scan the environment:
It is suggested that you scan your environment with automatic tools regularly to assist you identify which systems are the most critical and require the most testing. -
Try on your own:
Even on a strict budget, free or low-cost open-source technologies enable businesses to conduct basic vulnerability screening and identify obvious flaws. For example, Kali Linux is a penetration testing toolset that includes tools for network traffic analysis and SQL and WordPress vulnerability screening, among other things. These tools are mostly utilized if you wish to test on your own, and while they aren’t as good as a penetration tester with an auditor, they can give you an understanding of your threat environment. -
Check your penetration testing carefully:
Pen testing that is more thorough and aggressive can reveal more vulnerabilities, but it is more expensive and puts vital applications and data at risk. Scanning softwares is automatically “throttled back” if they create too much network traffic to reduce hazards to operating systems. Limiting testing to off-hours or creating test environments to attack are two more risk-reduction options.
It’s also less likely that you’ll be overwhelmed by all the test results if you test different sections of your infrastructure separately.
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Choose among different penetration box tests:
Ethical hackers can use three different types of penetration tests. Black-box pen tests provide ethical hackers with no information about your environment, while white-box testing provides them with considerable inside information. Gray-box tests fall somewhere in the center. Because it’s so easy for hackers to find basic information (such as the IP range of the client’s systems), most clients opt for white- or gray-box tests. In addition, developers can learn what to repair and prevent future vulnerabilities in their code by participating in gray- or white-box testing alongside the test team. -
Tap different skill sets:
For each round of testing, utilize different testers. As different suppliers use different methods and attacks, rotating across them will reveal different vulnerabilities. -
Results:
Most vendors will offer a prioritized, thorough list of attacks, explain how they were performed and the nature of each vulnerability, and prescribe a complete remedy plan. If you don’t have the funding or capacity to respond and fix problems, don’t bother with penetration testing. If you’re only doing it for a test, it’s a loss of money unless it’s required for compliance.
ENDNOTES
External penetration testing, when done correctly, is a low-cost way to observe your systems through the eyes of your worst enemies—real hackers. So, whether it’s an app you developed and need a hacker to test it or a social media site you might want to get into, choose hackers carefully, stay safe digitally!