An interview with MacEwan’s Cybersecurity/Ethical Hacking Club’s president, Dmytro Gorkun, and vice-president (external) Tenzin Pyurveev, talks about what the discipline of ethical hacking means to both the club, and the wider world.

Syn Dika

Photo by Amanda Erickson

When you think of the word hacker, do you think of a stranger trying to access your private info? Maybe you think of a hacktivist group like Anonymous. You might not think that a hacker can be one of the good guys.

However, an aspect of hacking that people may not know is its value in the field of cybersecurity, and the Cybersecurity/Ethical Hacking Club at MacEwan is working to break the stigma around hacking and educate people at MacEwan about it. “What we’re trying to push, the idea is that ethical hacking or cybersecurity is first we learn how to build, then we learn how to break it, then we learn how to spot the vulnerabilities, and then we learn how to fix them or how to mitigate them,” says club president Dmytro Gorkun. 

What Is ethical hacking?

“Hacking is using something for not-intended purpose, that’s what historically what it was. Where it turned to be malicious and people correlated the word hacking with malicious things. We’re trying to break out of that idea. That’s why we call ourselves, sometimes, we’re cybersecurity,” says Gorkun.  

Ethical hackers, also known as white-hat hackers, use their knowledge and skills in the fields of coding, encryption/decryption, and programming (alongside other skills) to aid in the development of better cybersecurity protocols. These hackers exercise their expertise for companies or organizations, such as Google or governments, in order to safeguard their systems. “Hacking implies that you know how to abuse the system but doesn’t imply that you will do it for the malicious ways. You know how the system works and the flaws of it,” says Gorkun.

Removing the stigma

The word hacking, and by extension the label of hacker, both have negative associations connected to them. The club aims to break the stigma down, by educating students about how ethical hacking is more focused on cybersecurity, while also discussing the need for hackers in cybersecurity. Gorkun explains, “We’re trying to attract people and break all the previous stigmas or views of what’s hacking and what the hacker is. So we’re trying to make it more desirable because there’s definitely a demand for it.” 

Alongside the stigma surrounding the actual word, they are also making the club more approachable for those with either basic or no computer knowledge. 

“Cybersecurity is really a big umbrella term. It’s not just all the hacking stuff. There’s also social engineering. There’s also networking with people and sales, right?. It’s not just only technical people. We’re welcome to all. You don’t have to be very technical to join the club because we can advise you in the right directions, at least point you to further your knowledge,” says club vice-president (external) Tenzin Pyurveev.

You can find the club online at clubeh.ca or on MacEwan’s Student Groups page.