Introduction

Before I teach you any hacking techniques, I need to talk about being ethical because in the end everyone draws the line for what is right and what is not just after their morals. They think what they would accept as “ethical” and lay the line there but I think we should lay down some general guidelines before we go on. That is what this document is about.

What is “ethical”?

We are going to outline a few general guidelines for you to follow and we expect you to adhere to these moral guidelines. I can’t force you and I am not a police officer but that is not my intention either. Failure to follow these guidelines however may result in your certificate of completion being revoked.

• When you come across a vulnerability, I expect you to disclose it responsibly. Do not make a blog post detailing the full issue and target or anything that can lead back to your discovery.
• Personal data is sacred, do not leak ANY personal information.
• We are here to help others, not destroy them. Do not use any of this information in a malicious way.
• When you get a foothold on a server in production, do NOT attempt to perform priv esc, this might break the server or have unexpected consequences. Instead report the issue responsibly and don’t leak it.
• When someone comes to you with an offer that is shady or seems in the gray area, do not take on the task. It might be someone taking revenge and tricking you and besides, gray area tasks are usually riddled with betrayal of people not paying each other.
• Do NOT test any target without permission

Adhering to these moral standards should also help you avoid legal trouble but I would still advice you to seek legal counsel as you are in an area of IT that can be seen as less than desirable.

The pro’s and con’s of being ethical

It has to be said that being unethical has a lot of negative consequences, besides the damage you are doing instead of repairing and building a better world. Of course our black hat coworkers are being enshrined in darkness and they have to operate with great operational security in mind, This is very stressful and will slowly eat away at your sanity, this does not mean some people can’t keep it up of course but forever evading law enforcement seems very stressful to me. The money is very good when it comes to the unethical branch of our operation but if you are chasing money I honestly believe that you are not in the correct field. Hacking is all about the knowledge and gathering an attitude of forever learning.

In the end it is up to you but the cons far outweigh the pros for me. Even just the damage you are doing is something I can’t morally approve of, all i can do is ask you build a better world and not break down things for the heck of it.