1. BLACK HATS: THE BAD GUYS
Black hat hackers (which also known as crackers) are the people that breach vulnerable companies. They are the bad guys whom exploit other’s weaknesses to steal valuable data and money. They are intelligent people but are motivated by greed and have low morale. They are using hacking to seek revenge, gain money and motivated by the need for power. Black hat hackers typically show sign of being sociopath and have low emotional IQ. They usually involved in distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, identity theft, vandalizing networks, and creating worms to destroy and wreak havoc. Some of the most infamous are Kevin Mitnick, who after being caught became a white hat, Vladimir Leonidovich, and Adrian Lamo.
2. GRAY HATS: THE IN-THE-MIDDLE GUYS
Gray hat hackers are someone who may violate ethical standards or principles, but without the malicious intent ascribed to black hat hackers. They use hacking to do digital theft like stealing money or intellectual property. However their skills are not advance like black hat hackers. They treat hacking like a hobby and have no desire to be white hat hackers too. They may dabble in minor crimes like file sharing or cracking software.
Gray hat hackers do not usually go dark. They tend to treat the whole thing as a game. They may, however, try to benefit financially. When they find a vulnerability in a system, they are not likely to notify authorities. Rather, they may offer to fix it for a fee. Gray hats contend they do not infiltrate for malevolent reasons. But not every company will see it that way. Gray hats are motivated by proving their own importance, seeing themselves as the most elite hackers.
3. WHITE HATS: THE GOOD GUYS
White hats hacker are known as ethical hackers. They help companies to protect the systems and networks by acting as penetration hackers. They use their skills to improve security by exposing vulnerabilities before black hat hackers can detect and exploit them. Although the methods used are similar, if not identical, to those employed by malicious hackers, white hat hackers have permission to employ them against the organization that has hired them. They understand how to find vulnerabilities and then create plans to eliminate them before they are compromised.
To become a white hat hacker, most individuals are trained in IT security and computer science, with many having degrees in one of these fields and also obtained certification by joining training and pass in the examination. Well-known white hat hackers include Marc Maiffret, Tsutomu Shimomura, and Dr. Charlie Miller. If you interested to become a white hat hacker, you may join our cyber security training and learn more about ethical hacking. Check our list of training here, and find out how you can become a hero to defeat the black hat hackers.