An ethical hacker is an indispensable part if you want to strengthen your IT security network. When data and user credentials are to be kept secured for their privacy, you need to know in which ways hackers can penetrate your system. By appointing an ethical hacker, you can close those holes which are vulnerable and data will be at risk due to that. If you are interested to know, how to hire an ethical hacker, then we need to follow certain steps to complete the entire task.
Background Work
First, you have to check whether you require any ethical hacker or not. Work out what sort of data and credentials you have in your system. It can be from user login data to confidential files. Once you are sure that you need to protect those at any cost, then start thinking about how to hire a hacker. Chalk out what he will do, what areas he will take care and how you will be benefitted from the entire process.
Let’s have a step by step approach:
Cost Calculation
You must have an existing IT team. A cost is associated with that department throughout the year. Now if you want to add any ethical hacker, then you must check what additional expenses you have to shell out. Ethical hackers work silently and you can’t see their productivity throughout the year. But, it is due to strategy planning, external attacks are stopped in your firewall. Intruders are denied from all aspects and your data remains secure in the process. Recruiting an ethical hacker is more or less like paying an insurance amount that will give you peace of mind under any circumstances.
Cyber Security Requirement Identification
Chalk out in which areas you need to appoint cyber experts. For example, if you have come up with an e-commerce site, then financial transactions in that app/portal need to be secured. For that, you need an ethical hacker who can check all the aspects from which hackers can try to steal the data. If you are into social media, then user details are key data you have to protect at any cost. Your internal network security should be enough strong to cater to such requirements and to strengthen that, you need an ethical hacker.
Pay Package
Once you are ready with the requirement, then you need to figure out the budget for this position. Appointing an ethical hacker is not a big deal, but for that, you need to pay a handsome salary and other benefits. Else they will now work in your organization. In a true sense, they are worthy to be paid handsomely considering the amount of security they are providing to your network.
Global Certification Preferred
While anyone can claim to be an ethical hacker after learning from various institutions, it is advisable to recruit only those people who have cleared global examinations on ethical hacking. This sets a standard of employees and due to rigorous training as well as certification process, they are well equipped to handle your data sensitively.
From Web Portals
There are specific job portals where you can find a handful of ethical hackers. You can filter them as per your location, requirement, age, and experience. This is the traditional way of hiring people where the interview is taken and in some cases, some practical assignment is also given to test how confident you are in this job role.
Hosting a Hackathon
This is the modern trend where you can host a hacking competition or can be part of a bigger competition of such. Several companies throw an open challenge to find vulnerabilities in their network system and they used to reward such person with a job who can find out the loopholes. This is a very good way to be connected with a lot of hackers and who knows, you might require the service of any other ethical hacker also in the coming days.
Internal Training and Promotion
If any of your existing IT team members are capable enough to hand such network security features, he too can be provided relevant training to be an ethical hacker. In one way, the employee got training to enhance his career and on the other hand, the company also found an able person who will be in that system for a longer duration.
Interviewing the Candidate
For such sensitive positions, a face-to-face interview is the best way to understand the candidate. You might not get a clear idea if you interview over the phone or just by replying to email/chat. If you are not convinced with a candidate, do check others and then only concluded. You must have time in your hand and you must not compromise in recruiting anyone hurriedly.
Background Check before Joining
It is a must to have a background verification before you formally join them in your organization. There might be any person who belongs to your rival group or any of your competitors might file a candidate to get inside information of your company. To counter all such things, you must have a proper and thorough background verification system to check the aspiring candidate.
Assign your Ethical hacker to work with the existing team
As preventing intrusion from outside is your major area of concern, hence your professional hacker must work with your existing IT team members to understand the details. Through this collaboration, both will be enriched and in turn, your network infrastructure will be stronger than before.
Keep a Close Eye
It is a general practice to keep a watch on any newly recruited person in a system, and if he is your ethical hacker, then special care must be taken in such a case. You should periodically check the security status of your website or server also.
Conclusion
So, this is all about how to hire an ethical hacker in your system to protect your network. This is one of the most important steps that you should take and in most cases, it is very much effective in protecting data privacy and user credentials.
