Joe’s actions are ethical?
Joe The Penetrator
Joe is a software developer who has been developing apps for mobile devices like phones and
tablets for a couple of years. Joe also has experience doing backend server software
development as well. Joe makes a good salary as a developer but wants to start a business
doing system penetration testing since he has heard that businesses will pay big money to have
their systems tested for security vulnerabilities as part of their risk management program.
Joe doesn’t currently have pen testing skills, which are viewed by some as just system hacking
skills used by all sorts of bad actors to commit cybercrime or commit acts of war, but
remembers hearing something about Kali Linux. Joe finds Kali Linux on the web, downloads it
and installs it in a virtual machine on his computer. Joe gets a book on Kali Linux called “Hack
your way to Riches” that explains all the tools in Kali and how to use them.
Joe works exercises from the book and feels like he is ready to test his skills in the “real” world.
Joe starts using the Kali tools to poke around in random sites on the internet. He decides to try
his skills on big name sites like ups.com, chase.com, et al. Joe figures that since these sites are
accessible on the internet he is doing a favor for the sites’ owners as well as gaining skills that
he can use for financial gain.
Joe has been exercising his skills on random websites for 2 months now and believes he is ready
to sell himself to businesses as a penetration tester. Joe starts marketing himself as a pen tester
and gets his first client. Joe agrees to perform end-to-end vulnerability tests on Acme
Corporation’s internal network and its external facing systems and produce a report showing
his findings.
