White Hat Ethical hacking is the act of having individuals who are professionals on how computer and networks systems work seek vulnerabilities and deficiencies in a network computer's security system so that they may know how and what other computer hackers can and cannot break into (Bishop 2007). This type of hacking is done so that companies themselves could know what information is more vulnerable than others, and how secure their security systems actually are. Ethical hackers attempt to break into data systems in a non-malicious way so that they may know how much others who do have bad intentions can access (Palmer 2001). The individual who conducts this ethical hacking is sometimes referred to as a "white hat" as opposed to a "black hat" which are both references from Western movies depicting the "good guy" and the "bad guy." In order for a network to be truly secure, it must be thoroughly examined through the perspective of an illegal hacker, and that is what an ethical hacker does (Caldwell 2011).

The objective of an ethical hacker is to test every type of vulnerability that a network system could have. In order to do this, ethical hackers need to first familiarize themselves with the entire network and its functionalities. An ethical hacker will need to hack into the network and break into their system as the first step in their ethical hacking process (Bishop 2007). After the break...

As a final step in their ethical hacking process, they would determine whether the hacked system would alert those affected by the hacking, and in what way these hacking processes could be avoided in the future (Palmer 2001).
Legal issues that ethical hackers have to deal with can become a bit blurry when dealing with the issue of hacking. Hacking is illegal period. This act of hacking is punishable by federal law. Ethical hackers however, get away with it. It is an illegal process, but at the end of the day, it is something that is needed (Whitman 2011). Another legal issue that ethical hackers deal with is not only doing the actual hacking, but the fact that they are exposing themselves as hackers, which again, is an illegal thing to do (Knight 2009). Technical issues that ethical hackers face is with their access to such confidential information. They can potentially get into so many private files, that this technical issue can also be considered a legal one (Whitman 2011). Another technical issue that ethical hackers face is that once they get access into a network system, it is not so much about what information has been accessed by them, but more of making the network more secure so that other people with bad intentions will not be able to do the same…