5 Types of Hackers You Must Know About in 2023 – When the term “hacker” comes to our mind, the first thing that comes to our mind is cyber crime. We see a lot of news circulating every day about cyber crimes, namely through letters, social networking sites, telephone numbers, and much more. The world has witnessed a number of crimes including robbery, extortion and others, via the internet and telephone.
However, a hacker is not always a criminal in cyberspace, there are various types of hackers, usually referred to as ethical hackers and unethical hackers. As the term suggests, ethical hackers hack information systems ethically for some good purposes while unethical hackers do the same things unethically for some wrong reasons.
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5 Types of Hackers You Must Know About
A hacker is someone who breaks into a computer system to get information and data from it. As such, hackers go far beyond the negative connotations that are generally attached to them. In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the different types of hackers and the roles they play in the world of information security.
White Hat Hackers
As mentioned earlier, all hackers are not criminals, with some even being considered heroes.
White Hat Hacker is a person who breaks into information systems or security ethically. He did not obtain information with malicious intent but did so for ethical reasons. White Hat Hackers are defined as security experts in organizations.
They perform various steps and shields to bypass information systems to obtain useful data for the organization. They are legally allowed to do the same and are often referred to as ethical hackers. In fact, there is a professional certification for ethical hackers, namely the Certified Ethical Hacker.
The CEH certification is one of the popular IT security certifications offered to security professionals. With the increasing number of cyber threats, the demand for ethical hackers is increasing day by day.
Black Hat Hackers
Not every hacker is a cracker but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any. Black Hat Hackers are referred to as crackers. As opposed to White Hat Hackers, Black Hat Hackers are people who break into information systems with malicious intent.
They hack computer systems, emails and more for fraudulent purposes. They dig into other computer systems, phone systems, accounts and so on, for details that could cause harm to the owner.
Many cyber crimes are the result of Black Hat Hackers. They use people’s personal information to cause crimes such as robbery, fraud, vandalism and many more.
Because this hacker group is a group of unethical hackers, they are punished by law for the crimes they cause.
Grey Hat Hackers
Not everything can be placed in black and white; there is always a gray area and it is the same with hackers. A Gray Hat Hacker shows the traits of a White Hat Hacker and a Black Hat Hacker.
This type of hacker usually digs into other systems unethically but does nothing harmful. Many Gray Hat Hackers break into other people’s accounts and information systems, get details and notify administrators of weaknesses in those systems.
Then later, they offered to fix the problem for a fee. So that way, they are people who hack other people’s systems to fix them for the purpose of earning money.
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Elite Hacker
Because there is a master of technology, there is also a master hacker. Elite Hacker falls into this category. Elite Hacker is the highest level for a hacker and they are innovators in the field of hacking. They have expert skills to log into information systems and pull data and information from the same easily. Elite Hackers can use their expert skills to assume the role of White Hat Hacker and Black Hat Hacker.
Script Kiddie
Because there are White Hat Hackers and Black Hat Hackers, there are Elite Hackers and Script Kiddies. A script kiddie is someone who is an amateur at hacking.
They don’t break into other people’s systems through their skills but use automated scripts to do hacking stuff. The tools and software used have been prepared by other hackers to break into information systems.
Like Elite Hacker, Script Kidde can also act as White Hat Hacker and Black Hat Hacker. As such, there are different types of hackers working with different objectives in the world of IT security.
Even though their job is to break into other people’s systems and obtain information, they do it with different goals and with different goals that make them different from one another.