‘Sois bon et tais-toi !’ L’éthique silencieuse des hackers éthiques

The increasing significance of cyber threats has given rise to a new figure within organizations: the ethical hacker. The ethical hacker operates both post-threat and, more importantly, pre-threat, working diligently to prevent malicious intrusions into computer systems. The various tests they conduct ensure the security of the concerned organizations while safeguarding their data. In this article, we delve into the silence surrounding this profession, from their training to the post-mission phase. Through a research-intervention conducted between 2020 and 2023 with 40 ethical hackers in the financial services sector (insurance and banking, penetration testing companies), we identified the distinct forms of organizational silence that define their activity and influence their success.