The word Hacker is not fully understood by everyone and inherently misused. A stereotypical 1980’s movie character where a hacker is an evil criminal who is conspiring against the people and government, is the visualization of people when they hear the word hacker. But in reality, a hacker is just a normal person whose computer skills are high and can manipulate and bypass computer systems to make them do the intended. Hacking is not illegal unless a hacker has malicious intent and is trying the trespass the defenses and exploit weaknesses of a system without authorized permission.
As in the 80s movies the good guys used to wear white hats and the villain used to wear the black hat, the hackers are also classified on the basis of their hats.
Unethical type of hackers – Black Hat
A computer expert who finds vulnerabilities in online security and willfully damages them for their own personal gain is a black hat hacker. They are motivated by the feelings of petty revenge by targeting the companies they don’t like and exploit their vulnerabilities to shut them down only for their frivolous reasons and also by feelings of power by infecting a computer by ransomware and then demanding money to unlock the device.
Related Post: 9 Tips to Reduce Mobile App Development
Black hats may look for any type of private information that might give them some money such as credit card numbers, passwords, Emails, and Bank Accounts data. Thus, they are called criminals with no ethics, and might even break into a computer network with an intention to destroy it rather than just stealing it.
Confused Type of hackers – Grey Hat
When compared to black hats, grey hats are less skilled or white hats are a blend of both types of hackers. Grey hats are often technology hobbyists who enjoy dabbling in minor white-collar crimes such as P2P file sharing and cracking software. They report the organization about their findings and if the organization or company does not respond or refuses to pay them, they perhaps post about the system’s weakness on online forums for the internet and the world to see.
Grey hat doesn’t usually work with malicious intent, they just search for bugs and vulnerabilities in order to get a small fee for discovering the issue. Whereas the hacker type attempt to compromise a security system without permission and that is not legal.
Ethical Hackers – White Hat
Using skills and capabilities for good and legal purposes is known as White Hat hackers. They are also known as contrasting personalities of black hat hackers. White hats are employees or freelancers or contractors who are hired to test the weak spots in security systems. This is the job which an individual get after studying cybersecurity if he is good at what he does he can also start his own company giving cyber safety services. They determine how they can improve the security measures by simulating the attacks by imitating the malicious user or black hat and help identify the vulnerabilities.
White Hat performs tests on the security systems like penetration testing and many more, they exploit a completely authorized and legal form of hacking. All this happens by taking permission from the owner first and report all the findings to the security team.
Current Scenario for the hackers and Conclusion
As per the experts, black hat types of hackers are the most skilled hackers and are more experienced when compared to that of most of the white type of hackers. To ensure their safety from data breaches and other security threats many former black hats have turned their life around and now work as white hats.
Related Post: What Is Business Process Management?
The requirement of ethical hacking is increasing to ensure malicious hackers do not get success in their efforts to access computer systems. Red-team, blue-team exercises and continuous penetration exercises are performed by companies to analyze and identify the weak spots, and to refine the security of their systems before the black hat types of hackers exploit them.
Ouriken is a standalone web design and digital agency. We design and implements powerful solutions for small and medium businesses in technology, business, and operations. Ouriken provides cybersecurity services and operations to effectively and efficiently detect and respond to the evolving threat landscape.