During the 2004 presidential campaign, Jeremy Poteet watched as the candidate's site he had worked to secure went up. Just 16 minutes later, the site was attacked.

But this high-profile site deftly deflected these attacks and the others that followed because Poteet had anticipated--and then protected against--the kinds of exploits he knew would be coming. How did he know? Quite simply, he's a hacker, and <A HREF="http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2155545,00.asp">thinking like a hacker</A>--and getting to know the tools that hackers use--is one of the most effective ways to protect your company from being exploited.

Poteet, chief security officer at AppDefense, is the type of hacker commonly referred to as a white-hat hacker or security researcher--someone who digs for system holes to point out where trouble could occur. Black-hat hackers are just the opposite--people who try to gain access to systems and the data on them for nefarious purposes. In the past, most hackers were in it for fun or for bragging rights.