Gray-Hat Hacking Essay -- Computers Technology Hackers Essays Research

Gray-Hat Hacking Overview Computer security is a growing concern with the onset of always-on connections in the home and the emerging global network. More and more people become connected everyday. The reliance on computers in our daily lives has increased the need for security and has shifted the ethical line for hackers and hacking. â€Å"A hacker is someone with deep knowledge of and great interest in a system. A hacker is someone who likes to delve into the inner workings of a system to find out how it works.†2 The definition of a hacker has been skewed in recent years by the press to connotate people who break into computer systems. The term has also evolved to represent people who protect computer systems and those that break into them. These newly termed hackers can be classified into three categories white-hat, black-hat, and gray-hat hackers. White-hat hackers are employed by corporations and work on the good side to secure computer systems without breaking into them. Black-hat hackers work on the bad side and attempt to compromise systems in illegal ways. Gray-hat hackers occupy the gray space of hacking and break into systems to learn and expose flaws, often as a service to the computer community. The ethical line dividing white-hat hackers and black-hat hackers is clear. However, the line that separates gray-hat hackers from black-hat hackers is constantly shifting in the new global network. Hacking that may have been considered ethical yesterday may not be true today due to the impact on global systems in the form of dollars loss and downtime. Hacking has evolved from simply having knowledge of systems by harmlessly breaking into them to an issue of security and computer crimes (cybercrimes). Hacking attac... ...um Copyright Act, 1998, http://www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf 5 Deborah Radcliff, Playing by Europe’s rule, 2001, http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,62057,00.html 6 US Department of Justice, Federal Computer Intrusion Laws, http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/cclaws.html 7 Council of Europe, Convention on Cybercrime CETS No.:185, 2001, http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/EN/cadreprincipal.htm 8 CSI / FBI, Computer Crime and Security Survey, 2003, http://i.cmpnet.com/gocsi/db_area/pdfs/fbi/FBI2003.pdf 9 George W. Bush, President’s Message to the Senate on the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime, 2003, http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/senateCoe.pdf 10 US Department of Justice, FAQ on Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime, 2003, http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/COEFAQs.htm