What is white hat hacker?

There are many types of hackers and one of them is white hat hackers, also known as ethical hackers. Today we will discuss what is an ethical hacker.

What is a hacker?
Hacker is a person who uses computer and networking or other skills to overcome technical problems. By hearing term "hacker" the very first thought might be - the person who uses his or her abilities to gain unauthorized access to systems or networks in order to commit crimes, but as mentioned before - there are many types of hackers like an ethical hacker, black hat hacker and grey hat hacker. A hacker may, for example, steal information to hurt people via identity theft, damage or bring down systems and, often, hold those systems hostage to collect a ransom.

What is an ethical hacker?
Ethical hackers, strive to operate in the public's best interest, rather than to create turmoil. Many white hat hackers work doing penetration testing, hired to attempt to break into the company's networks to find and report on security vulnerabilities. The security firms then help their customers mitigate security issues before criminal hackers can exploit them.

Businesses need ethical hackers now more than ever because almost every company invest time, money and resources in securing their systems and platforms to prevent data breaches, illegal intrusions and DDOS attacks. The global cyber spending will most probably cross $1 trillion by 2021. Data breaches happening almost daily, that's why businesses look to ethical hacking professionals who can prevent devastating security intrusions.