The history of ethical hacking is actually just the history of hacking. Given the current portrayal of hackers as cybercriminals and thieves, it is hard to imagine the word “hacker” having anything other than negative connotations. But it wasn’t always a bad thing to be a hacker. In fact the word surfaced in its modern context at the renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Throughout the 1960s, hacking was a term used by engineering students that simply meant finding different ways to optimize systems and machines to make them run more efficiently. Hacking was a creative activity carried out by some of the brightest people in the world. And it’s interesting to note that the idea of the ethical hacker actually predates the criminal hacker.
Phreakers and tiger teams
It was during the 1970s that the waters begin to get muddied. With the growing popularity of computers, individuals who understood systems and programming languages were beginning to see the possibilities in testing those systems to understand their capabilities.
This was also the time that “phreaking” began to gain widespread notoriety. Phreaking refers to the practice of manipulating telecommunications systems. Phreakers began to understand the nature of telephone networks. Many individuals were able to use devices that mimicked the dialing tones in order to route their own calls, which allowed them to make calls for free – specifically, highly expensive long distance calls. Arguably, this was one of the first times that hacking was used for illegal purposes by a large number of people.
Simultaneously, however, governments and companies were beginning to see the benefit in having technical experts actively seek out the weaknesses in a system for them, thus allowing them to solve those problems before they could be exploited. These were known as “tiger teams” and the American government was especially keen on using them to reinforce their defences.
The rise of the black hat hacker
In the 1980s and 1990s, the term hacker began to be associated almost exclusively with criminal activity. The amazing popularity of the personal computer as tool for both businesses and individuals meant that a lot of important data and details were now stored not in physical form but in computer programs. Hackers began to see the possibilities of stealing information that could then be sold on or used to defraud companies.
Hacking was gaining a profile in the media – and not a positive one. Hackers were seen as criminals – digital trespassers – who were using their skills to gain access to private computers, steal data and even blackmail businesses into handing over large sums of money. These kinds of hackers are what we describe today as black hat hackers: they are purely interested in using their skills for malicious purposes and often connected to a range of different criminal activities. Black hat hackers get the vast majority of media attention, and there have been high-profile hacks on enormous companies like eBay and Sony in recent years.
Kommentarer