In This Article, We Have Tried To Introduce You To The Types Of Hackers So That You Have A Correct Understanding Of The Activities Of Hackers.
There are standard and sometimes wrong or incomplete ideas about hacking and hackers. By reading this article, you will get a more realistic and close picture of hackers’ motivations and activities.
Who is called a hacker?
In popular culture, a hacker is a person who illegally and unauthorizedly breaks into systems and manipulates, steals, or destroys information. According to the general public, a hacker uses his knowledge and intelligence to access information and abuse it, which is not a wrong definition but incomplete. Hackers are not always the ones looking for sabotage.
What you see in most movies about hackers are isolated and introverted people who hack a site or system with a few lines of code and a few clicks and steal its information for different purposes.
Well, it’s time to introduce you to the accurate picture of the world of hacking and hackers. In general, a hacker understands computers, networks, and programming and uses his knowledge and available tools intelligently and creatively to achieve his goals and find a way to penetrate systems.
Also, contrary to the imperfect portrayal of hackers in movies, the road to becoming a professional hacker is long, and you need to show a lot of passion and persistence and not give up.
According to their goals, hackers can abuse knowledge, intelligence, and creativity or use them to establish security. In general, some hackers cause damage, and others fix the damage.
As you can guess, hackers’ only income is not selling information and blackmailing; they can also earn legal revenue. For example, many professional hackers use their skills to identify security holes in an organization’s systems and then recommend fixing them to provide the necessary security.
Therefore, most hackers who engage in legal activities are hired by organizations and companies. There are different types of hackers, each of which will be briefly described below.
Types of hackers based on hat color
As we mentioned, different types of hackers are usually classified according to the color of their hats. Two criteria are used for this classification: the motivation for hacking and whether it is legal or illegal. In the following, we will describe each type and try to get a correct understanding of its concept.
White hat hacker
- White hat hackers, also known as ethical hackers, prefer to use their skills and intelligence to provide security. A white hat hacker is a professional with ethical and legal practice and works with ethical hacking organizations or groups to find and fix security vulnerabilities rather than exploit them.
- White hat hackers perform penetration testing, test security systems, and conduct vulnerability assessments for companies. There are even courses, tutorials, conferences, and certifications for white hat hackers.
Black hat hacker
- Like white hat hackers, black hat hackers have extensive knowledge of penetration systems and bypass security protocols. They are also responsible for writing malware to gain access to these systems. The primary motivations of these hackers can be personal or financial interests, cyber espionage, or interest in the excitement of cyber crimes.
- The terms white hat and black hat come from Western movies in Americ. Thee heroes of those stories often wore white hats, and the villains wore black hats.
Gray hat hacker
- Gray hat hackers are a type of hacker whose motivation and activities are similar to those of white hat and black hat hackers. These hackers look for system vulnerabilities without permission or knowledge. Many freelancers seek to profit by exposing vulnerabilities in an organization’s security structure and offering to fix them for a fee.
Usually, gray hat hackers do not exploit the found vulnerabilities and do not have the wrong goals and motives. They are just looking to get something out of their efforts. However, this type of hacking is still considered illegal.
Red hat hacker
- These hackers are similar to white-hat hackers. Red-hat hackers aim to prevent attacks from black-hat hackers. But the difference they have with ethical or white-hat hackers is that, unlike them, they may use illegal or extreme measures to achieve their goals.
Blue hat hacker
- Blue hat hackers, also known as revenge hackers, use their skills as a social weapon and a means of revenge against another person, employer, or organization. These hackers are not very professional, are considered beginners, and are classified as blue hat hackers.
Green hat hacker
- Green hat hackers, sometimes mistakenly called script kids, are novice and enthusiastic hackers looking to learn and improve their status in the hacker community. Although they do not intend to cause harm, they may do so while practicing various malware and attack techniques. As a result, green hat hackers can also be harmful because they are often unaware of the consequences of their actions.
- Script kiddies are amateur and inexperienced hackers who try to use pre-written scripts. These are often novice hackers who do minor damage. Therefore, the difference between green hat hackers and script kids is that green hat hackers are serious and eager to learn the basics of hacking. Whereas scripting kids download or buy malware, tools, and scripts and use them instead of learning new hacking and programming techniques,
How to become a hacker?
A hacker has a deep understanding of computers and details and uses the available facilities and tools intelligently. So, you have to be creative and think differently to enter the world of hacking. Learning A+, CEH, PWK, Linux, and Networking is suggested.
To begin with, you don’t need programming because you are familiar with the concepts and methods. Therefore, depending on what field you are interested in working and gaining expertise in, you should start learning programming languages.
Do not forget that after learning the prerequisites we have mentioned, seek advice from experts in this field for a road map. The wrong advice will confuse you for years.