The technical skills of an ethical hacker and a criminal can look almost identical. What separates them is permission. Before you learn a single tool, you need to understand what ethical hacking is, why organizations pay for it, and where the legal and ethical lines sit.
You'll start with what ethical hacking means and the different types of hackers, then learn the CIA triad: confidentiality, integrity, and availability, the three goals every security measure is trying to protect. From there the module covers hacking law, including why unauthorized access is a crime even with good intentions, and how scope and rules of engagement keep a security test authorized, controlled, and safe.
With the ground rules in place, you'll be ready for the next module, Networking Essentials, which looks at how data moves across the networks you'll be testing.
What ethical hacking is: an authorized attempt to gain access to a system, and how white hat hackers help organizations find weaknesses before attackers do.
The different types of hackers, including white hat, black hat, and gray hat, along with what motivates each and how they differ.
A look at the legal side of hacking and cybercrime, and how the US Computer Fraud and Abuse Act has evolved since it was introduced.