Careers in Ethical Hacking

When a genius mind follows its passion and makes it its career, the end result is this…...

Interesting Facts about Ethical Hackers

Ø  India leads the world in ethical hackers; 23% live there (the U.S. is number two with 20%)

Ø  Top ethical hackers in India make 16 times the median salary for a software engineer in that country (wow)

Ø  58% call themselves "self-taught," but many report they've taken at least some computer science classes

Ø  Top motivations are "the opportunity to learn tips and techniques," “to be challenged, and “to have fun”; "making money" was 4th

Ø  37% hack as a hobby

Ø  12% make more than $20,000 annually

Ø  3% make more than $100,000 annually

Ø  1% make more than $350,000 annually

Ø  Young person's game: 90% of hackers are younger than 35

Types of Hackers

Hackers can be classified into different categories such as white hat, black hat, and grey hat, based on their intent of hacking a system. These different terms come from old Spaghetti Westerns, where the bad guy wears a black cowboy hat and the good guy wears a white hat.

White Hat Hackers

White Hat hackers are also known as Ethical Hackers. They never intent to harm a system, rather they try to find out weaknesses in a computer or a network system as a part of penetration testing and vulnerability assessments.

Black Hat Hackers

Black Hat hackers, also known as crackers, are those who hack in order to gain unauthorized access to a system and harm its operations or steal sensitive information.

Black Hat hacking is always illegal because of its bad intent which includes stealing corporate data, violating privacy, damaging the system, blocking network communication, etc.

Grey Hat Hackers

Grey hat hackers are a blend of both black hat and white hat hackers. They act without malicious intent but for their fun, they exploit a security weakness in a computer system or network without the owner’s permission or knowledge.

Their intent is to bring the weakness to the attention of the owners and getting appreciation or a little bounty from the owners.

Ethical hacking is not illegal and it is one of the demanding jobs available in the IT industry.

Careers

Ø  Network Security System Administrator/Manager

Ø  Network Security Engineer

Ø  Systems/Applications Security Executive

Ø  Web security Administrator/Manager

Ø  Ethical Hacker

Ø  Data security specialist

Ø  Computer Forensics Investigator

Ø  IT Security Administrator/Consultant/ Manager

Ø  Security Certified Programmer

Ø  Security Analyst

Ø  Information Security Analyst

Ø  Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH)

Ø  Security Consultant, (Computing / Networking / Information Technology)

Ø  Information Security Manager

Ø  Information Technology (IT) Manager

Specialized Courses include

Ø  Certificate course in Ethical Hacking

Ø  PG Diploma in Information Security and System Administration

Ø  M.Sc in Cyber Forensics and Information Security

Ø  M.Tech in Cyber Security and Information Security

What you study is school or college does not matter that much, when an engineer can be an actor, when a dancer can be a politician, why can't any student pursue ethical hacking. It's all about passion, craze and commitment towards your work.

If you want to do ethical hacking, pursue courses like CISS, CEH, CISSP, ISO 27001:2013, COBIT, HIPPA, PCI-DCC, some networking courses like CCNA, CCIE, CCNP etc. There is a complete career path for ethical hacking.

Where to Study?

Ø  Institute of Information Security, Mumbai, Chandigarh

Ø  Ethical Hacking Training Institute, New Delhi

Ø  Ankit Fadia Training Center, Delhi, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand, Punjab, Tripura, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh

Ø  National Institute of electronics and Information Technology, Calicut

Ø  University of Madras, Madras

Ø  Indian Institute of Informaton Technology (IIIT), Allahabad

Ø  SRM University, Tamil Nadu

Ø  IMT, Ghaziabad

Ø  Tech Defence, Ahemdabad, Delhi

Ø  Amrita School of Engineering, Coimbatore

Ø  School of Vocational Education and Training, Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU)

Ø  Indian School of Ethical Hacking, Kolkata

Cost of courses in Ethical Hacking

₹ 30,000 to 2 Lacs

Salary

Ethical hacking is the most promising career these days and a survey shows that the average salary of a certified ethical hacker India ranges from ₹ 3,67,249 per year to ₹ 10,80,000.