Meet the hackers

When one hears the word “hacker”, what springs to mind is the silhouette of someone wearing a hoodie, sitting at their computer and frantically typing away on their keyboard to break into a company’s computer system to commit some kind of fraud. While this assumption isn’t entirely wrong, not all hackers are cyber criminals.  

Indeed, a hacker is a person who is a pretty dab hand at computer systems. Hackers are smart, talented and possess advanced skills in IT programming and security. Let’s take a look at the 8 different types of hackers.

1. White hat hackers

Also known as “ethical hackers”, these guys are cybersecurity professionals. They work for governments and businesses helping them identify and fix network vulnerabilities. This approach helps them to keep potential threats at bay and strengthen their organization’s overall cybersecurity.

Wau Holland is one of the best known white hat hackers. He was a German journalist, an activist, a pioneer in hacking, and a strong advocate and believer in freedom of information and decentralizing IT.  He co-founded the Chaos Computer Club in the 1980s, one of the most influential activist hacker associations in Europe.

2. Black hat hackers

Also known as “crackers,” this is the group of individuals that is usually referred to when talking about hackers. Unlike ethical hackers, the nice guys mentioned above who abide by the law and regulations, crackers abide by no code of honor. They are in it for the money and will do whatever it takes…stealing, spying, extortion! Anything goes!

Black hats work for criminal organizations that carry out attacks for financial gain.

3. Script kiddies or skiddies

These are amateur hackers who do not actually write their own code but use scripts written by seasoned programmers. So skiddies are often people with no programming knowledge excited by the idea of experimenting with new things and outright vandalism.

Denial of service (DoS) attacks are the most common technique used by this group.

4. Gray hat hackers

It is never all black and white…there is always a gray are. And that goes for hacking too. Gray hat hackers use the same hacking techniques as crackers to uncover security flaws and do so illegally.

While what these individuals engage in is not entirely honest, they often act for the greater good. Gray hat hackers sit halfway between white hats, the good guys helping to secure your IT system and the bad guys, the black hats, who exploit network vulnerabilities to commit cyber crimes.

To be clear, this type of hacking is still illegal, because, even if they do act with good intentions, breaking into networks and retrieving data without the owner’s consent is prohibited.

5. Hacktivists

These guys are anonymous activist hackers who break into the IT systems of government agencies. They do so to exploit confidential information in support of political causes they believe in.

The best known hacktivists are a group called Anonymous. Its members appear masked and generally defend free speech on and off the Internet.

6. Red hat hackers

Red hat hackers are like white hat hackers in that what they do is also to protect companies from potential cyber threats and attacks. But unlike white hats, red hats are ruthless when it comes to defending an organization even going as far as breaking the law to do so.

They also take things further by trying to disarm cybercriminals. Rather than hand black hats over to the authorities, red hats will use aggressive attack techniques such as DDoS, one of the most popular types of cyberattacks, to destroy their means and resources.

7. Blue hat hackers

Like script kiddies, these are novice hackers who hack to seek revenge. They are not interested in honing their computer skills whatsoever and are happy using simple cyberattack techniques.

Better not get on their bad side!

8. State-sponsored hackers

These are people hired by a government to spy and break into the networks of large companies, departments or other governments. They have unlimited budget and access to very advanced tools to conduct their attacks.

As an example, FireEye, one of the leading cybersecurity companies in the United States, claims to have been hacked by a state-sponsored hacker in 2020.

So there you have it. Hackers come in different “shapes and sizes” – you’ve got “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” in the Wild West of hacking. There are subtle differences between them and they each have their own reasons for hacking. So, associating the adjective “bad” with “hacker” is somewhat one of the preconceived ideas around cybersecurity. The bottom line is that we all need to be very careful and extra vigilant to keep cyber threats at bay and protect ourselves from the different types of hackers who can indeed pick up on and weaponize the slightest flaw or vulnerability in our IT system.