Penetration (pen) tester and hacker are similar terms. The difference is that penetration testers work for an organization to prevent hacking attempts, while hackers hack for any purpose such as fame, selling vulnerability for money, or to exploit the vulnerability of personal enmity.
Lots of well-trained hackers have got jobs in the information security field by hacking into a system and then informing the victim of their security bug(s) so that they might be fixed.
A hacker is called a penetration tester when they work for an organization or company to secure its system. A pentester performs hacking attempts to break into the network after getting legal approval from the client and then presents a report of their findings. To become an expert in pentesting, a person should have a deep knowledge of the concepts of their technology. In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:
- The scope of pentesting
- The need for pentesting
- Components to be tested
- Qualities of a good pentester
- Approaches to pentesting
- Understanding the tests and tools you'll need
- Network sockets
- Server socket methods
- Client socket methods
- General socket methods
- Practical examples of sockets
- Socket exceptions
- Useful socket methods
