Businesses are hiring a growing number of ethical
hackers to test the security of their IT systems, the consulting
group NCC said this week.
NCC chief executive Rob Cotton,announcing at 10% rise in interim
profits, said that demand for ethical hacking had grown by 50% last
year, and would continue to rise in 2006.
“Businesses have acknowledged that they are getting weaker as
they are not keeping pace with the sophistication of the
non-ethical hacker. They need to take advice to overcome what is an
epidemic threat to businesses,” he said.
The NCC said that businesses were increasingly asking
consultants to check the resilience of their businesses to “social
engineering” attacks.
NCC specialists have been hired to pose as IT staff, to trick
unsuspecting employees into disclosing their user name and
passwords, Cotton revealed.
In other cases, consultants have posed as staff, gained access
to buildings, and logged onto office systems.
The NCC is also seeing increased demand for forensic IT
services, following a series of data thefts by company employees,
particularly temporary staff.
“If you are a hacker, where is the best place to hack someone to
gain financial gain? Inside the business,” he said.