We have been fed the image of hackers being malicious and notorious by movies and pop-culture. How many times have you seen a movie where a hacker clatters away on a keyboard for a few second and then sheepishly says, ‘I’m in.’?
Like most things, movies are often a poor representation of fields as technical as hacking and computers. Hacking is not always bad, and it’s not always good either. There is a nuance to things in most fields and this is truer in fields like hacking.
Professionals in hacking are categorized based on their intent. Moving forward, we will discuss the three types of hackers known in the industry.
Types of Hackers
As mentioned earlier, hackers are generally categorized based on their intent.
- Black Hat Hackers
The bad hackers you see in movies who hack into bank accounts and secure databases are black hat hackers. Their main intent is malice. They hack into digital systems by exploiting their vulnerabilities and then do anything they can to enrich themselves.
Generally, black hat hackers demand ransom money in order to restore systems they hack. Sometimes, if the information a system has is valuable, hackers would steal the information and sell it to the highest bidder. Black-hat hacker would do anything that would help their cause, whether it’s extorting ransom money, selling information to the highest bidder, or anything else.
- White Hat Hackers
White hat hackers are the good guys. Ethical hackers are also referred to as white hat hackers.
An ethical hacker is supposed to know all the tricks and techniques used by black hat hackers. In practice, white and black hat hackers are not every different. The only difference, as mentioned before, it that of intent.
A white hat hacker hacks into a system using the same methods a black hat hacker would only to find its vulnerabilities and weak points. He/she does with the approval of the owner of the digital system.
The only way a digital system can truly be called impervious to cyber-attacks is if it is actually subjected under one. An ethical hacker puts a digital system under the same amount of scrutiny a black hat hacker. The only difference is that the ethical hacker is looking to steal any information. There is no desire in an ethical hacker to enrich himself. The goal is to find the weak points of a digital system and suggesting remedies.
- Grey Hat Hackers
Grey hat hacking, as the name suggests, borrows elements from black and white hat hacking. The intent of a grey hat hacker, like a white hat, is not to harm or steal information from a digital system.
Grey hat hackers hack systems out of fun. They are not authorized to hack into systems by those who run them. If they do find vulnerabilities, they tend to alert the relevant authorities about it. The techniques used by a grey hat hacker are not different from black or white hat hackers.
We discussed the different types of hacking and hackers one is likely to find. There are other types of hackers that exist as well. If you wish to learn more about it and ethical hacking in general, consider joining ethical hacking course.
About Author
Kanika Gupta is a Freelance content writer, write about Technology, she is a contributor at Delhi Courses Academy, who is one of the best known writer in the industry and also provide cyber security courses&best ethical hacking courses in Delhi.
