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Ethical Hacking
Have you ever wondered how computers get hacked? Would you like to find out how? If so, then ETSU has the perfect class. Ethical Hacking is a new course that ETSU offers to students looking for summer credits.
David Frazier, the course’s instructor, has been teaching students how to find and identify vulnerable code that hackers exploit to gain access to things they shouldn’t. In his course, he teaches students through lecture and lab to find vulnerable code that could lead to such things as buffer overflows, SQL injections, Denial of Service attacks, and more.
Most importantly, Frazier teaches students the ethical side of hacking. He shows student how to clean up their code when such vulnerabilities are present. On the first day of class, Frazier makes it clear that he does not teach students to "cover their tracks." If hacking is done in an ethical fashion, then there is no need for clandestine behavior.
The definition of ethical hacking is when a person hacks a network or system, with permission by the owner, to find and report vulnerabilities that can be exploited. However, there is more to ethical hacking than just that. Ethical hackers have limits that they will not exceed, and must follow a code of ethics. Ethical hackers will not destroy or copy personal files or attempt to exploit the permissions they have been given by their clients. Any irregularities that are found must be reported even if the client says otherwise. Ethical hacking is performed as a service rather than for personal gain.
"I think that our department is committed to teaching security and ethics, and I think a lot of people don’t realize how closely the two are related," said Dr. Terry Countermine when asked why he decided ETSU should offer a course in ethical hacking. "The purpose of this course is to teach our students that you can use ethics to improve security by knowing about security holes that most people don’t think about."
Students currently enrolled in the course are finding the class to be quite interesting. "I have noticed that this class is the most applied class that I have taken so far. It has taken every concept I have learned and put them together," says senior Eric Adams. Other students, such as Adam Fink, find that the course experience is unique and interesting by offering competitive grading in which the grading scale is set by the group or individual with the best performance.
ETSU is one of few schools to offer such a program. Other schools, such as Mt. Sierra College in California, only offer seminars that run for a week and cost thousands of dollars to attend. Here at ETSU, students only have to pay for 3 credit hours to get five weeks worth of ethical hacking knowledge.
For students, this is a great opportunity to learn to improve their code and learn a bit more about code security. And neither Dr. Countermine nor Frazier feels that there is any concern about students using skills from this class for ill will. "I trust that students can make the correct decision between doing what’s right and wrong," says Dr. Countermine.
If you’d like to find out more about this course, please contact David Frazier of the Computer Science Department.
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