- Ethical hacking involves discovering vulnerabilities in systems through authorized penetration testing to improve security. Ethical hackers have strong technical skills and work to answer questions about what intruders can access and do on targeted systems.
- The Certified Ethical Hacker (C|EH) certification from EC-Council covers topics including reconnaissance, scanning, enumeration, hacking web servers, social engineering, cryptography, and penetration testing to evaluate system defenses.
- Ethical hackers are paid well, with experienced consultants earning over $120,000 annually and freelancers receiving $10,000-$45,000 per project. Many large organizations have certified ethical hackers on staff to test their security.