What is Ethical Hacking and Who is Certified Ethical Hacker (C|EH) ?

The Certified Ethical Hacker (C|EH) is a professional certification provided by the International Council of E-Commerce Consultants (EC-Council.) An Ethical Hacker is one name given to a Penetration Tester. An ethical hacker is usually employed by an organization who trusts him or her to attempt to penetrate networks and/or computer systems, using the same methods as a hacker, for the purpose of finding and fixing computer security vulnerabilities. Illegal hacking (i.e.; gaining unauthorized access to computer systems) is a crime in most countries, but penetration testing done by request of the owner of the targeted system(s) or network(s) is not.
               A Certified Ethical Hacker has obtained a certification in how to look for the weaknesses and vulnerabilities in target systems and uses the same knowledge and tools as a hacker. The certification is in Version 6 as of August 2008. The EC-Council offers another certification, known as Certified Network Defense Architect (C|NDA). This certification is designed for United States Government Agencies, and is available only to members of selected agencies. Other than the name, the content of the course is exactly the same. The exam code for CNDA is 312-99.

Certification coursework
        The coursework consists of 67 modules, which range from 30 minutes to five hours or more, depending on the depth of the information provided. Some training centers and universities in Asia and Europe include EC Council's CEH program in one of their course modules. A white hat is the hero or good guy, especially in computing slang, where it refers to an ethical hacker or penetration tester who focuses on securing and protecting IT systems. White hat hackers are computer security experts, who specialize in penetration testing, and other testing methodologies, to ensure that a company's information systems are secure. White hat hackers are also called "sneakers", red teams, or tiger teams. These security experts may utilize a variety of methods to carry out their tests, including social engineering tactics, use of hacking tools, such as Metasploit, which exploits known vulnerabilities, and attempts to evade security to gain entry into secured areas.

Read PDFs

http://www.twincling.org/twincling/slides/ethicalhacking.pdf
http://media.wiley.com/product_data/excerpt/4X/07645578/076455784X.pdf
http://www.certconf.org/presentations/2003/Wed/WM4.pdf
http://pdf.textfiles.com/security/palmer.pdf
http://www.centroatlantico.pt/titulos/tecnologias/imagens/e-book-ca-corporate-security-excerpt.pdf
http://www.koenig-solutions.com/training/EthicalHacker.pdf
http://www.mavensecurity.com/documents/Maven-CISO-Guide-to-Ethical-Hacking.pdf
http://infosecwriters.com/text_resources/pdf/Ethical_Hacking_RHartley.pdf