Cybersecurity vs ethical hacking. Do you know what each one means? Or do you know the difference and similarities between the two terms?
Keep on reading to know more.
What is Cybersecurity?
Cybersecurity is the combination of both skills and tools to give the best security to users. Its main goal? To keep all your data secure from any threats on the internet.
Also, it has four phases:
- Identify. Knowing and understanding the various cyber risks.
- Protect. Installing needed measures.
- Detect. Detecting any events or incidents.
- React. Doing the needed actions when cyber incidents happen.
These steps are vital to keeping all digital assets safe. Also, the ones to take care of this are cybersecurity experts. They should know a lot of topics and be familiar with all kinds of threats.
What is Ethical Hacking?
Ethical hacking is a way to make sure an application is secure. And no one can enter the security systems.
How? By testing it against all security breaches. Then, check whether the security controls can protect your system or not.
So, we can say that ethical hacking is under cybersecurity. Because it deals with finding out any openings. Then, solving them.
Who does ethical hacking? They are also cybersecurity experts. But more known as penetration testers.
Cybersecurity vs Ethical Hacking
So, we now know what each term means. Yes, they have the same goals. And that is to keep data safe. But there have some differences.
As said, ethical hacking is a part of cybersecurity. Why? Because the latter is a broad topic. For one, it includes data security, digital forensics, ethical hacking, and more.
Also, those people who do ethical hacking are called “white-hat hackers.” Yes, their work on hacking the system is the same as “black-hat hackers.”
But the two have different goals. For ethical hacking, hackers find openings to protect the system.
In the case of cybersecurity experts, they do not need to hack the system. Their role is to secure the network. How? By taking all the needed security measures.
But that is not all their difference. Let us take a look below.
Goals:
- Cybersecurity. To protect data and systems from malicious activities. By knowing and solving all security issues.
- Ethical Hacking. To find vulnerabilities in the system. Then, report it to the owner.
Focus:
- Cybersecurity. Finding ways to protect the system.
- Ethical Hacking. Finding ways to attack the system.
Duties:
- Cybersecurity. Making access privileges for a system. As well as finding issues and protecting the system. Then, experts need to do regular maintenance. So that they ensure all security system is updated.
- Ethical Hacking. Making reports on how they did the hack. As well as exploiting the weaknesses of the system. Or doing penetration testing to find out weak spots. Then, experts need to do regular testing. So that they are up to date with any new flaws and they can solve them fast.
So, these are the key differences between cybersecurity and ethical hacking. Which one of the two careers do you want to reach?
