Every day, numerous websites are hacked, and companies are paying dearly for attacks by hackers. To keep their businesses safe from any such unauthorized attacks, companies have started hiring legal hackers who will take the necessary steps to save the networks, applications, data, and other crucial information from getting into the hands of unethical hackers.
So, let us start this article by understanding what ethical hacking is.
What is Ethical Hacking?
Ethical hacking, as some of you might be aware, refers to the legal art of penetrating enterprise networks to discover potential flaws that could be leveraged by hackers to create an entry point in a given network. The primary target of an ethical hacking endeavor is to find out any exploit and devise ways to patch them before any attack occurs.
An ethical hacker refers to an information security expert who penetrates a network, application, computer system, or any other computing resource with the permission of the owners to identify vulnerabilities that could be potentially exploited by a malicious hacker.
In this article, we will outline the best programming languages for ethical hacking that will help secure corporate networks successfully.
Best Programming Languages For Ethical Hackers
Before delving deeper into the list, I would like to start by reminding you that the top programming language for ethical hacking mainly depends on the type of attack you choose to carry. It is important that you have the perfect strategy ready. Let us now move on to the list of languages.
1. C Language
It is no surprise that the C programming language is extensively used in the security industry as it is the holy grail of modern programming languages. The C language provides an edge over other languages when it comes to accessing low-level hardware components like RAM. This language allows ethical hackers to manipulate system hardware and resources. C helps penetration testers write blazing fast socket programming scripts.
Some of the notable highlights of this language are:
- Modern operating systems such as Windows and Unix are built using C.
- The C language is used by veteran security professionals for stimulating the library highjacking attack.
2. JavaScript
With the inception of Node.js, JavaScript has taken PHP’s role as the most preferred language on the internet. It is being used widely for hacking web applications. This hacking coding language has become the most sought-after language for hacking complex web apps as it has the ability to manipulate front-end and back-end components.
Highlights of JavaScript Language:
It is the most preferred language for developing hacking programs for cross-site scripting.
It is a viable solution for building internet worms as it can easily manipulate the browser DOM.
It has the ability to mimic attacks for both the server and the client-side.
It is used for creating adware hacking programs.
As it helps develop cross-platform desktop software, hackers may use it for buffer overflow and stack overflow attacks.
3. PHP
PHP, the acronym for Hypertext Preprocessor, is a dynamic programming language that is used to develop content management systems like WordPress and Drupal. As a majority of the personal websites on the internet are based on these content management systems, an in-depth of PHP is needed to compromise such networks. Some of the highlights of PHP are:
- It is used extensively in server-side scripting.
- Effectively manipulating the deprecated scripts of older PHP websites will provide easy access to servers.
- Having a thorough understanding of PHP can help ethical hackers take down faulty websites as soon as they spot them.
4. Ruby
This is used for manipulating multi-purpose corporate systems. Its syntax is very much similar to that of the Python programming language. The Ruby language offers superior flexibility while writing exploits.
Highlights of the Ruby programming language are:
- Ruby is a suitable option for writing fast hacking programs.
- Veteran hackers use Ruby to write CGI scripts.
- As many next-generation web applications are written using the Rails platform, Ruby is the best language to use for breaking them.
Conclusion
I hope you have now gained a fair idea of some of the top programming languages that you can use for securing a website or mobile application, or any sensitive data.
To become an expert in ethical hacking, check out the cybersecurity certifications offered by Global Tech Council.