The term “hacker” brings us pictures of a lonesome, hooded person working in the shadows, taking our money or personal data. Although this description applies to some types of hackers, it doesn’t apply to all because we have different types of hackers and cyber techniques.
What are the types of hackers?
In the cybersecurity world, we have some different types of hackers. Let’s find out more about it.
1) White hat hackers: Also known as ethical hackers, white hat hackers are cybersecurity professionals. They have the authority to hack into the systems and detect weaknesses and repair them to prevent external assaults. White hat hackers follow the government’s laws and regulations. They want to aid and defend businesses in the continuous war against cyber-threats.
2) Black hat hackers: In fact, they are the primary reason why people have negative perceptions of hackers. Black hat hackers are also computer specialists, but they have a different aim. They attack other systems in order to gain access to systems they are not allowed to. Their motivation is to hack into companies’ networks and steal financial information or sensitive data, which they then use to take advantage of, sell on the black market, or harass their target firm.
3) Gray hat hackers: The gray hat hacker falls somewhere between the black hat and white hat hackers. These hackers aren’t authorized and might have either good or harmful intentions. The difference is that they don’t seek to rob or help anyone in particular. Rather, they love experimenting with systems in order to uncover vulnerabilities, infiltrate securities, and generally have a fun time hacking.
4) Script kiddies: The Script Kiddies are amateur hackers in the realm of hacking. They try to hack the system and networks using scripts by other hackers. They’re young people who are inexperienced with the hacking procedure. A DoS (Denial of Service) is a common Kiddie Script attack (Distributed Denial of Service).
5) Green hat hackers: green hat hackers are new to hacking and are still learning the ropes. They want to study and try to become massive hackers, and they’re searching for opportunities to learn from professional hackers
6) Blue hat hackers: Hackers who are similar to Script Kiddies are known as blue hat hackers. They use hacking to win popularity among their peers and to settle scores with their opponents. Blue Hat Hackers are dangerous not because of their knowledge, but because of the motive behind the hacking.
7) Red hat hackers: red hat hackers are synonyms to Eagle-Eyed hackers. They are the same types of hackers who are similar to white hackers. The red hat hackers seek to stop the black hat hackers’ attack. Actually, the distinction between red hat and white hat hackers are in the practice of hacking via purpose.
These three kinds of hackers below work in a different capacity:
Nation sponsored hackers/State: The government hires hackers to get information about other countries. These hackers use their skills to obtain sensitive information from other countries in order to be well prepared for any potential threats to their own country.
Hacktivist: Hacktivism is defined as the act of breaking into a computer system for political or social purposes. A hacktivist can be an individual or a group of anonymous hackers whose goal is to gain access to government websites and networks.
Malicious insider or whistleblower: This type of hacker is someone who works for a company and has access to private information. The reason for the exposure can be a personal grudge against the organization, or the individual could have discovered criminal activity within the organization.
How can ethical hackers help your business?
After learning about the different types of hackers, we realized that ethical hackers, also known as white hackers, are good hackers who can apply their skills to help businesses secure themselves. They try to identify and report security vulnerabilities before they can be exploited by criminal hackers.
If you don’t believe that a hacker can help your business instead of harming it, you should rethink your beliefs! Here are five commercial benefits that ethical hackers can offer your company.
1- They know how the bad guys think: Even if you have IT expertise, understanding a hacker’s mind might be difficult. White hat hackers understand how hackers work and can utilize that expertise to keep your network safe from access.
2- They know where to look: Knowing what to look for when evaluating cyber security might be difficult, but ethical hackers know where to start and where possible weaknesses are most likely to be found.
They can bring to light flaws that you may have overlooked
Sometimes we believe that our network is as secure as possible, but those vulnerabilities could be invisible to you, and an ethical hacker will notice them from a mile away. One of the most important reasons to hire an ethical hacker is to uncover hidden vulnerabilities in their cyber defenses. These good-guy hackers are experts at identifying open ports, back doors, and other potential entry points into your network.
3- Their testing abilities are unrivaled: Testing your network is an important aspect of a good cyber defense plan, but the testers’ abilities determine the strategy’s success. You could end up with a devastating data breach — if the individuals testing your network don’t know what to look for.
When it comes to network testing and intrusion detection, ethical hackers with years of experience investigating networks for flaws know how to perform testing so that the results are accurate.
They can help you in establishing a strong network from the start:
Making an ethical hacker part of your start-up team can help you establish a better and more resilient network. Creating a computer network with built-in security features will greatly minimize your vulnerability to data breaches, and employing white-hat hackers will give you a significant edge.
In fact, it’s interesting that the black hat security conference is held every year and is intended for hackers who want to learn more about how to think like a black hat and help their company avoid becoming the next catastrophic data breach headline.
Will companies always need to hire hackers?
Because of the shortage of cybersecurity professionals, it appears that companies will need to continue hiring hackers — regardless of their hats — for the near future. Hackers may not be the cybersecurity force of the future, but they really do play an important role now.
We have skilled ethical hackers at SecureBug that can help you protect your business from any attack. The right hackers can really enhance your organization’s and network’s security and using ethical hackers to test your cyber defenses is a wonderful way to improve and secure your company network.
