Types of Hackers are defined based on how they perform operations and their intentions.
In the Early days, cybercriminals are enthusiasts, Who enjoying to testing complete functionality in different perceptions mostly like Kevin Mitnick Who is a famous hacker enjoying what he doing. but nowadays hackers become very dangerous. They mainly find vulnerabilities to gain personally or financially.
Nowadays attackers not only work individually and they formed as groups and focused on sensitive data like credit cards, personal information people, and many more.
Types of Hackers
Types of Hackers
Types of hackers are mainly defined into three categories:
- White hat hackers,
- Black hat hackers,
- Gray hat hackers.
White hat hackers:
White hat hackers are good guys who performed penetration testing to find vulnerabilities in networks or systems and informed those vulnerabilities to the development team to fix those vulnerabilities before exploiting them.
These types of hackers are also called ethical hackers.
Most companies and organizations provide a bounty to the hackers who find vulnerabilities and informed them.
Example: If a company hires a hacker to check the vulnerabilities in their network. that type of hacking comes under ethical hacking. They have been authorized to hack the networks in that company. These types of hackers are called White hat hackers.
Black hat hackers:
Black hat hackers are bad guys, These hackers are also called unethical hackers. Black hat hackers do attacks for personal gain.
Black hat hackers use their skills for malicious activities. They exploit vulnerabilities to compromise computer systems and networks.
Example: If a hacker inserts malware and collects users’ credit and debit card and use those for personal gain these types of a hacker are called Black hat hackers.
Gray Hat hackers:
Grey hat hackers are people who are skills unethical way but not for personal use. They exploit vulnerabilities unethically (without proper permission) and publish publically about the vulnerability.
They may also inform the organizations after exploiting it. it helps organizations fix their vulnerability and secure that.
Example: If a hacker hacks a network or computer system without authorization and collects data and provides information to the organization about vulnerability.
Modern classification of Hackers based on their motives:
Nowadays, hackers are classified into many forms. Based on their motives and their skill level hacker are classified into many categories.
Some of the modern terms used to classify the hackers:
Script Kiddies:
The term refers to the inexperienced hackers, who use existing tools to perform the hacking operations called script kiddies.
Script Kiddies don’t know how the tools are working they only know how to use tools.
Vulnerability Broker:
These hackers mostly find vulnerabilities in applications, systems, and networks and report them to the owners for bounties and prizes. These type of hackers comes under the category of Gray Hat Hackers.
Many top companies provide bounties for finding bugs in their application. They have launched a bug bounty program to find and fix the bugs in their application.
Hacktivists:
Hacktivists are the hackers who protest the political and social ideas of organizations and governments by posting articles, videos, leaking sensitive information, and more.
Sometimes they do DDoS attacks to stop their website services. These types of hackers come under the category of Gray Hat Hackers.
Example: The most famous Hacking Group is Anonymous. It fights for people against governments and organizations. It works secretly.
Anonymous Hacking Group hacks governments’ sites and leaks sensitive information and this group has a lot of fans.
Cyber Criminals:
The hackers work alone or as a group or under cybercrime organizations for illegal activity. These hackers are called Black Hat Hackers.
Every year cybercriminals have thrift billions of dollars from consumers and companies.
State-Sponsored Hackers:
These hackers are either white hat or black hat hackers who steal information from foreign governments. Their targets are terrorists, foreign governments, and corporations. They may work for their governments.
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