Summary

This chapter addressed what ethical hacking is and what roles it plays in enterprise security. Ethical hackers are individuals who possess training and skills as hackers; however, ethical hackers use their skills to improve the overall security of the organizations that engage them. Unlike black hat hackers, ethical hackers are professionals who work within a set of rules that define engagement. These rules are never exceeded because anything outside of those rules could result in the operator facing legal consequences.

Conversely, hackers do not follow any rules or have the same ethical boundaries. As such, the results that hackers can achieve are limited only by the means, motives, and opportunities available.

This chapter also discussed the anatomy of an attack, the cyber kill chain, and the phases of an attack, including reconnaissance, exploitation, and command and control. Finally, we closed the chapter by looking at defensive technologies such as firewalls, antivirus software, and EDR solutions.

In the next chapter, we will start our journey into ethical hacking with our first stop, footprinting and reconnaissance, where we will learn about the techniques used by attackers to gather information about their targets.