3 Different Hacker Types

You’ve been watching and reading the news right?  All of those data breaches that have made headlines; it’s a crazy, risky, digital world that we live in.  The digital world is one where knowledge and information equates to power, or scientias est potestas as the old Latin phrase goes. Sure, these digital attacks sometimes surround money, or politics, but it is the knowledge these hackers possess and gain from their subterfuge that grants them so much influence.  To be a substantial Hacker Attacker, you need knowledge of your own.  Here, I will give you the building blocks to form your own power base to better protect yourself against the biggest aggressors of the digital age. 

Black, White, and Everything in Between

As with most things, there are multiple types of hackers.  For the most part, hackers are grouped together under three different umbrella titles, typically called ‘hats.’ In the digital community, the color of a hacker’s hat is determined by, and categorically denotes, the manner of hacking in which that particular individual excels. 

Black Hat

When most people think of hackers, they are thinking of black hats.  If you were to group the types of hackers into a family and make a movie out of them, the black hat would probably look a lot like Bender from The Breakfast Club.  Black Hats are the criminal, bad boy element of the family, and they typically attack with malicious intent, and for personal gain. 

White Hat

Do you know those guys who post about weaknesses that were found in SSL and subsequently patched?  Those guys are usually white hat hackers, or are working with them to find and repair such vulnerabilities.  White hats are the Sherlock Holmes to the Black hat Moriarty.  White hats typically have just as much, if not more, knowledge of computer and network innards, and manipulate and expend that knowledge for the good of companies or the people at large.  Though motivations for these hackers are primarily geared towards assisting companies with finding weaknesses, they are usually paid for their efforts, so personal gain isn’t necessarily off of the table.

Grey Hat

The Grey hat is the murky, temperamental brother of the family. Ethics are clear-cut for the black and white hats, but not so for the grey. Grey hats are not necessarily bad guys or good guys, but somewhere in-between.  Whereas a white hat is generally hired by companies or individuals in order to determine vulnerabilities, and a black hat attacks to destroy or dismantle; a Grey Hat attacks on their own first, and then lets someone know about what they find.  The ‘someone’ might not necessarily be the company who could be hurt by the vulnerability, but a grey hat gets the message across one way or the other.  Grey hats are typically incremental in skill level, and are dangerous because of their anonymity.  It is harder to pinpoint who might be entirely a Grey hat because their motivations center primarily on a simple desire to hack. 

Of course, just giving a hacker a hat to wear is rather vague.  You can guess the motivations of a person are dark just because they are attacking you, but that won’t help you much when trying to defend yourself.  For that form of defense, you need to know the different shades that each color hat may come in.    

For the 6 Categories of Hackers and What They Want, tune in for our next article.  Did I miss something?  Comment below and let me know!