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Questions tagged [white-hat]

White hat hacking (aka "ethical hacking", or "penetration testing") is the act of attacking a computer security system for the purpose of finding and fixing vulnerabilities. It is the opposite of black hat hacking.

1 vote
1 answer
160 views

Impact of port scanning on the web domain itself

I was learning about port scanning and I understand, what, why and how. However, I do not understand why a Bug Bounty hunter or a penetration tester (strictly for web app assessment) would run a port ...
Just.a.tech's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
142 views

Does black hat always equal illegal? [closed]

I often hear of black-hat hacking discussed as if it was synonymous with illegal hacking. In other words, an act of hacking is black-hat iff it is illegal. Our own tag wiki for black-hat defines it as ...
Robert Columbia's user avatar
53 votes
3 answers
14k views

Could bug bounty hunting accidentally cause real damage?

If an application's code contains even minor and subtle inaccuracies, it can open up the entire database to SQL injection. In this example (see section 'Delete All Method'), the entire Users table ...
stevec's user avatar
  • 1,310
0 votes
1 answer
153 views

Understanding a Burp Capture

I am thinking of taking up ethical hacking as a hobby. So, I installed Burp Suite Community Edition and set it up with Firefox. I opened Instagram and tried to login with these details (just for ...
Aditya Pratap Singh's user avatar
0 votes
2 answers
315 views

White hat hacker asks for account to do penetration tests

Our company has online app that requires to create a business account. Yesterday some suspicious accounts were made and our system automatically blocked the account creators and ip addresses. And ...
undefinedman's user avatar
83 votes
5 answers
23k views

How to proceed with a white-hat hacker claiming a vulnerability?

I am a security member of a small company which recently got contacted by someone claiming to be a Hackenproof member. They were reporting on our website being indexed by googlebot (metadata, thin ...
Vcode's user avatar
  • 876
1 vote
0 answers
88 views

Does application security assessments done using SaaS solutions (WhiteHat Sentinal and Fortify on Demand) count as penetration tests?

SaaS security solutions such as "WhiteHat Sentinal" and "Fortify on Demand" are getting popular now a days. Methodologies of both describe them involving manual verification. Does this qualify the ...
EssentialsOfCool's user avatar
29 votes
9 answers
10k views

How can an administrator secure against a 0day before patches are available?

I'm working on a thesis about the security hacker community. When a 0day is published, how can an administrator secure his application/website between the time the 0day is published and the patch is ...
K.Fanedoul's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
504 views

White hat "ethical" hacking legality

I was preparing a presentation on White hat hackers and ethical hacking, I organized it this way at the moment: This mindmap is a draft version, of the final thing. By defense, I meant security ...
Axel Carré's user avatar
0 votes
2 answers
179 views

What is the responsible thing to do when I care about a vulnerability more than the team behind the system? [duplicate]

I've encountered a security vulnerability in a website. The website is that of a leading brand in it's industry. There are user accounts etc. and this website is very popular. I've contact multiple ...
JᴀʏMᴇᴇ's user avatar
5 votes
3 answers
4k views

What is an 'Orange team'?

I heard that Google had an unofficial 'Virtual' team called the Orange Team that consisted of staff from outside the official security team, who engaged in a range of white hat activities to both ...
Stephen's user avatar
  • 153
39 votes
4 answers
11k views

Is demanding a "donation" before disclosing vulnerabilities black hat behavior? [closed]

We have been contacted by an "independent security researcher" through the Open Bug Bounty project. First communications were quite OK, and he disclosed the vulnerability found. We patched the hole ...
Jacco's user avatar
  • 7,712
0 votes
1 answer
433 views

Penetration Testing Methodologies

I have some issues regarding the concept of black, grey and white hat. Where and in what penetration testing methodology I can find the black, grey or white hat concept definition?
Lucian Nitescu's user avatar