Questions tagged [ethical-hacking]
An ethical hacker, also known as a whitehat hacker, is a security professional who applies their hacking skills for defensive purposes on behalf of the owners of information systems. Use this tag for questions about legal issues related to ethical hacking. Do not use this tag for questions related to ethics in general.
22
questions
14
votes
2
answers
7k
views
Is it legal to hack a hacker back (in the US)?
I was wondering if it's legal to do what most people call a "hack back." Suppose someone tricked you into downloading software onto your computer that was designed to steal your data, but it ...
- 624
11
votes
3
answers
7k
views
Is it illegal to download passwords in bulk from the dark web to make a password checking tool to help people?
I remember some password managers like Google's would give me a warning about passwords that have been compromised.
My question is this. How is Google or any company able to see that the password I ...
- 227
7
votes
3
answers
3k
views
Are publicly available password dumps legal under GDPR
When a company gets breached by hackers, often the contents of their databases will make its way onto the internet. Sometimes this will include obviously personal information such as email contents or ...
- 81
5
votes
2
answers
3k
views
Can Law Enforcement in the US use evidence acquired through an illegal act by someone else?
There are reports on the internet this morning that a group of people were able to hack Parler and download around 70tb of data from the servers before AWS ceased hosting the platform. There are ...
- 685
4
votes
1
answer
924
views
Legality of scanning a site with SSLLabs SSL Server Test in order to find and report weaknesses
I am wanting to scan a site (which I do not own) to see if they are vulnerable to anything like Heartbleed or the POODLE attack, not because I want to exploit any such vulnerabilities for malicious ...
user1157
3
votes
1
answer
225
views
Legal implications of printing something remotely to tell the owner their printer is vulnerable?
Commonly, wireless printers in homes and corporate settings can be configured incorrectly, exposing them to the internet. This can be a major security vulnerability, and can allow anyone to not only ...
- 624
3
votes
2
answers
102
views
Hacking a scammer: is this guy breaking the law by deleting phishing data?
I just watched this video. In it the presenter hacks a phishing website using a SQL injection attack and then deletes the database of harvested emails and passwords.
Assuming that he did this to a ...
- 13.5k
3
votes
1
answer
286
views
Is reverse engineering for research legal?
I want to look at the code of a certain app, without modifying it. Is that fine accordingly to EU laws ? Btw, sorry if I posted this in the wrong place.
- 39
2
votes
0
answers
73
views
Do I need explicit permissions to clone the FB login page for teaching and demonstration purposes?
We are in the business of training on Ethical Hacking. One of our modules shows a demo of the Social Engineering Toolkit. The demo involves cloning of the Facebook login page. One of our members felt ...
user1720897
2
votes
0
answers
616
views
As a Developer how should my contract be worded to protect against hacking
I am a web developer and have a contract for client based projects that has been improved over years and many projects.
However after reading it this month I think that upgrading the section that ...
- 121
2
votes
1
answer
3k
views
Is it illegal to perform wifi hacks on your own home network using tools like WiFiPhisher, Aircrack, and Wireshark?
Apologies if this has been asked countless times. I've seen it a few times around here however they usually pertain to someone having written permission. And I don't...
Or if someone could post a ...
Nocturnel
1
vote
1
answer
240
views
How to go about learning cyber security if possessing such software (hacking software) is highly and explicitly illegal in my and most countries?
A question for "ethical hackers" or cyber security professionals. I am very interested in the world of cyber security and all aspects of it. I am genuinely interested in the security aspect ...
- 123
1
vote
1
answer
949
views
Is there any country where hacking back is legal?
Building on this unanswered question: Under what circumstances could laying hacker "traps" cause civil or criminal liability for non-law enforcement civilians?
I was wondering if there was ...
- 13
1
vote
1
answer
146
views
Is it illegal to head to public but hidden web pages such as admin.php?
I'm someone who's recently been interested in cybersecurity. I learned that most webpages have a text file called robots.txt (like example.com/robots.txt) that holds webpages that are public but are ...
- 15
1
vote
0
answers
132
views
Can an individual be held responsible if their code is used maliciously?
For a while now, I have been interested in viruses, backdoors, etc. As a result, I've started to tinker around with techniques on how to go undetectable for educational/personal purposes. I'd like to ...
Eccentrici
1
vote
0
answers
100
views
Would I be liable to EULA & Terms of Use when reverse engineering a product (for research) without a formal contract/agreement?
I'd like to possibly to my bachelor thesis in Computer Science by reverse engineering some IoT devices such as security cameras & smart locks.
The items will be purchased by myself (probably ...
0
votes
1
answer
2k
views
Is it illegal to create and sell a exploit of a zero-day vulnerability?
The definition of an exploit:
A software tool designed to take advantage of a flaw in a computer system, typically for malicious purposes such as installing malware.
The definition of a zero-day ...
- 249
0
votes
1
answer
216
views
Question about legal side of port scanning during bug bounties
Additional info I'm living in the UK(Scotland) and testing targets are scattered around the world(but mainly in UK, EU and USA)
I'm just writing some wrapper around the recon tools that I want to use ...
0
votes
1
answer
140
views
Legal status of responsible disclosure
In the current security landscape it is common to offer responsible disclosure to (ethical) hackers to report vulnerabilities in such a way that the company does not pursue legal action against this ...
user23613
0
votes
2
answers
74
views
Duty of care dilemma when reporting Web vulnerabilities to both Stakeholders and Web Service owner
Ok, I am going to ask this question with an Analogy.
A Locksmith is walking in the street and comes across a door. The door seems to be well secured to a normal user and is actually a door to safe ...
- 103
-2
votes
2
answers
115
views
Imagine that I am some random person in an ordinary democratic country. Can I hack or spam or scam hostile foreign governments?
Imagine that I am some random person in an ordinary democratic country. Can I hack or spam or scam hostile foreign governments?
E.G. a DDOS attack on the servers of the Russian Rosgvardia or black fax ...
- 1,185
-3
votes
1
answer
100
views
does law defines any hacker rules? [closed]
does law defines any limitation that tells how much can a hacker use his knowledge in different way?
Any boundary that tells about hacker and cracker.
- 47