The Term Hacker has several definitions. Habitually Hacker is a person who are enthusiasts in digital computing, they have more knowledge than that of the normal user. It doesn’t matter that a hacker should master only in computers, they may master any thing like mobile phones, PDA’s, Digi- Cam’s, Signals, Hand held devices and so on.
In Computing hackers are clever programmers. In Security Terminology Hackers are the person who really enjoys computing, Programming and the one who deals more with any electronic devices, most often computers by exploring new techniques and tweaking them.
Hackers are skilled person who are good programmers with a good attitude but, Nowadays the term hacker is used with negative connotation because of media’s. Lemme make it clear why the term ‘Hacker’ Such a bad impression among public or its vague.
In security terminology hackers are further classified into three main types based upon how they use their skills in the real world.
1. White Hat
2. Black Hat
3. grey hat
White Hat:
They are skilled programmers who knows more about computer security. They know both the good and evil, Pros and cons in security aspect and more over these guys will use their positive attitude to fix a bug or security loopholes that can be exploited by bad guys. They were good in network troubleshooting and use their skills in a positive way to protect and guard nodes in a network. These guys are basically pen testers and also can be called as ‘Ethical Hackers‘, since they do it legally.
Black Hat :
These guys are mere opposite to White Hat Hackers who creates havoc in a network by spreading malwares, breaking into computers by compromising the security, gaining unauthorized access, defacing websites, stealing credentials, money from victim’s credit cards and these guys will do some other clumsy stuffs, also can be referred as a ‘Cracker‘. Even these guys knows what the White Hat knows, but will have a poor attitude and will use their skill in darkside.
Grey Hat :
It doesn’t require much technical skill to become a Grey Hat hacker, and these guys often are not good in programming but, will search and use someone’s program or coding from the internet to exploit a known vulnerability, also can be referred as ‘Script Kiddies‘. They often try trial and error method to exploit or compromise the security and are ‘wannabe hackers’. Incase of grey hat, they will try to deface websites only upto their level and will not try to learn new techniques, and mostly their attempt will be unsuccessful, where as this is not the case with the black hat, they are ambush attackers who waits even for years to deface the target site and the target’s are most often a reputed and esteemed corporation.
Even hackers can be classified into more crew’s like cyber terrorist, script kiddies but, all of them comes under the three main category thats given above.
Why Hacking ?
Just for Fun :
Most of them will hack just for fun by exploiting the known vulnerabilities and will be script kiddies. Novice hackers will some times steal their comrades E-mail credentials for fun using some key loggers and other techniques for playing pranks, fun and so on.
Raise their status in Communities :
Since there a mushrooms of underground communities available on the internet, just a defacement of any reputed or well known site will fetch them respect among the underground crew.
Political Purpose :
Cyber terrorists will deface victims website, shutdown power, create havoc and outrage in the country and they will get paid for this.
Revenge :
This occurs often by a disgruntled employee of any organization and may try to disclose company’s confidential information and will deface the company’s web resource to degrade its reputedness.
Self-testing :
These guys are Novice hackers who have started learning new techniques from the web or other source and will test themselves whether they are capable of compromising the security or defacing a web resource.
Accidental :
Hacking that occurs without any intention or without their knowledge, and this is due to the poor security policies that’s been followed in that organization or what ever it may be.
Financial Gains :
Hackers might crack into a system for financial gains hence forth they steal credit card informations, Social security numbers and might construct a phishing site to trap victims to make them believe that they are using a legitimate resource for money transaction.
Further Attack :
Hackers Might take over computers all around the world to spread malware, make them as zombies, botnets which can be later used to launch a DDOS ( Distributed Denial of Service ) attack, which may down the victim’s website down by eating up its bandwidth.
IP Theft :
They crack into computers to launch another attack by spoofing their identity by stealing the victim’s identity such as IP Address, E-Mail address, MAC Address, organizations name and stealing bandwidth and so on.
