9781422275177

Emissions from plants that burn fossil fuels are very harmful to the environment. responders seek to learn as much as possible about an ongoing cyberattack, and then attempt to stop it. Penetration and vulnerability testers seek to hack into an organization’s computer systems—with permission—to see if they are at risk of being hacked by cybercriminals. But more about the work of professional hackers in a bit. The people who use technology to steal our personal information, sabotage computer systems, or even tamper with pacemakers are known as “black hat hackers” or “cybercriminals.” Professional hackers, who are also known as white hat hackers, ethical hackers, and information security analysts (although people with this job title many have other non-hacking duties) are the good guys and girls. They try to stop cybercriminals from hacking into people’s computers and committing other cybercrimes. Professional hackers may also have specialized job duties based on their job duties. For example, incident analysts and

Government cybersecurity experts have detected attempted cyberattacks on nuclear power plants and other types of energy infrastructure.

CHAPTER 1: WHAT DO PROFESSIONAL HACKERS DO? 13