With ethical hacking, the main differences to traditional (“normal”) hacking is its ethical foundation and the basic and general conditions of a hack. Ethically-motivated hacking aims to protect digital infrastructures and confidential data from external attacks and constructively contributes towards improved information security.
In contrast, “normal” hacking focuses on destructive objectives, i.e. infiltration and possibly even destruction of security systems. Lower motives such as personal enrichment or the acquisition and spying on of confidential data are at the heart of most hacking attacks. Most hack attacks are accompanied by criminal action such as extortion, industrial espionage, or the systematic paralysis of system-critical infrastructure (even on a large scale). Nowadays, “evil” hacks are increasingly being carried out by globally operating criminal organizations, which, for example, use globally networked botnets for DDoS attacks . Moreover, a basic concern for many “bad hacks” is to remain undiscovered and hidden.
At first glance, this distinction appears obvious and selective. On closer inspection, however, there are borderlinecases. For example, politically motivated hacks can pursue ethical-constructive, but also destructive goals. Depending on the interests and personal or political views, a different assessment can be made and a hack can be considered “ethical” or “unethical”. For example, the covert intrusion of state investigation authorities and secret services into computer systems of private individuals, public authorities, or other states has been critically discussed for several years.
Border crossing is also a form of ethical hacking, which is oriented toward the common good and the improvement of cybersecurity, but at the same time takes place unsolicited and without the “target’s” knowledge. This kind of hacking is practiced by groups like the Cult of the Dead Cow (cDc), which is America’s oldest hacking group. The activities of the association focus less on economic aspects than on feared negative effects on society and the data security of citizens.
As such, the cDc has played an instrumental role in pushing internet security to the forefront and democratizing technology. They have played an active role in many central issues by releasing code, testifying to Congress, and launching companies that could help uncover security threats. But even if organizations like the cDc do not want to harm their “victims”, disclose the results of a hack, and explicitly aim to educate the public, they remain in a legal grey zone.
If you look at “normal” and ethical hacking from a purely technical perspective, it’s even more difficult to distinguish between the two. Technically, white hat hacking uses the same know-how and the same techniques and tools as “unethical” hacking to detect weaknesses in hardware and software as close as possible to the real world.
The line between “normal” and ethical hacking is, therefore, rather blurry, and it’s certainly no coincidence that in many young IT offenders can become respected security consultants and thought leaders in the industry when they’re older. There are also critics who fundamentally reject ethical motivations as a distinguishing criterion and take the view that hacking per se should be condemned. Consequently, there is no justifiable distinction between a “good” (= ethical) and an “evil” (= unethical) hack.
However, this position ignores the positive effects and the often useful and necessary practice of ethical hacking. The community of the internationally recognized cybersecurity platform HackerOne, for example, eliminated more than 72,000 security vulnerabilities in over 1,000 companies by May 2018. According to the Hacker-Powered Security Report 2018, the total number of reported critical security vulnerabilities increased by 26 percent in 2017. These figures show that white hat hacking is an important and proven tool in today’s fight against cybercrime.