Ethical Hacking vs Penetration Testing

The model of cyber security is very much complex. In the upcoming days, the model will become more complex. It’s hard to understand the methods like Ethical hacking vs penetration testing. Ethical hacking and generation testing both are very important parts of cyber security.

These two roles have certain similarities and also have some differences between them. It’s important for anyone who wants to secure his/her infrastructure or wants to be a part of the cyber security field. In this article, we RedNode will explain Ethical hacking vs Penetration testing.

The Role of a Penetration Tester:

A penetration test is a method to simulate a cyber attack against a digital infrastructure to find all possible security vulnerabilities in that infrastructure. There are certain rules of penetration testing that a tester must follow. A penetration mainly focuses on finding all the security vulnerabilities of a system. A penetration tester:

• Focuses on finding security vulnerabilities.
• Have some rules that a tester has to follow.
• Penetration testing’s scope is limited.

If you want to know more about penetration testers read this article –> The Process Of Pentesting: How Experts Pentest Your Application

The Role of an Ethical Hacker:

There is also an ethical hacker role in simulating cyber attacks against infrastructure, but it is much broader and has a larger scope. Ethical hackers have a lot fewer rules to follow than penetration testers. The main goal of an ethical hacker is to secure the infrastructure in any condition. An ethical hacker:

• Just focus on every aspect of an infrastructure’s security not only security vulnerabilities but also social engineering, malware, etc.
• Ethical hackers can be posses in many forms like incident responders, blue teamers, red teamers, penetration testers, etc.
• Ethical hackers just don’t pose before the attack they also fix the system if it gets attacked.

Ethical hacking vs Penetration Testing (core differences):

We RedNode, have prepared a table to simply present Ethical hacking vs Penetration testing. Here:

Ethical Hacking	Penetration Testing
Ethical hacking is a core field and a combination of many fields.	Penetration testing is a standalone field.
The scope of ethical hackers’ is bigger.	The scope of penetration testers’ is smaller than ethical hackers.
Ethical hackers are in charge both before and after a cyber attack.	Penetration testers are in charge only before a cyber attack.
Ethical hackers can also fix the system after a cyber attack.	Penetration testers only can save the system from cyberattacks.
Ethical hackers have to do a lot of paper works and their work is more time consuming.	Penetration testers require less time and less paperwork than any ethical hacker.

Ethical hacking and Penetration Testing (similarities):

Even there are a lot of core differences between ethical hacking and penetration testing still there are a lot of similarities too. Here RedNode has created a chart to showcase the similarities between ethical hacking and penetration testing:

Similarity	Description
Objective	Ethical hackers and Penetration testers are means to secure IT infrastructure.
Job	Both work to find security vulnerabilities in a system.
Authorization	Both operations require legal approval from the authorities for execution.
Methodology	Both follow a systematic approach to execute their task.
Reporting	Both need to submit a report to the authority.
Skills	Both have a few similarities in their skill like finding vulnerabilities.

In conclusion, the fields of ethical hacking and penetration testing play vital roles in ensuring the security of digital infrastructures. While they share some similarities, they also have distinct differences in terms of their scope, responsibilities, and objectives.

Need more information about ethical hacking vs penetration testing and help contact RedNode.