Most people won’t immediately imagine a nice, helpful guy when they hear the word “hacker”. They consider hackers to be untrustworthy.
There is always the possibility that hackers will be able to gain access to the database of a vulnerable network, but what is important is that they don’t all do so to steal data. For instance, this can be done in order to find a breach and report that to the company.
The first step to comprehend what a hacker does and why society has such a negative image of them is to figure out what is hacking and who are the hackers.
Who is a hacker?
In simple terms, a hacker is someone who uses their technical skills to find any vulnerability in a network or system. Of course, this skill does have its disadvantages and can cause some trouble. However, this does not make a hacker a bad guy.
The intentions underlying a hack really matters. To be more specific, what matters is what happens after hacking — what do hackers do after discovering a breach? Are they going to exploit the database or fix it?
It should be clear that hacking involves the exact same action; the only difference is in the purpose of it. To better understand this, let’s take a closer look at different types of hackers and their intentions.
What are the types of hackers?
Hackers can be divided into three main categories:
White-hat hackers: Hackers in this category are most commonly known as ethical hackers. Many of them work for organizations and companies to protect their networks and databases from cyber attacks. Their goal is to find vulnerabilities before they are found by an attacker. They are legally permitted to do their job.
The ethical hacker community is becoming more and more popular in order to help companies make their websites secure to use. Many companies out there use ethical hackers to provide security services to other organizations, such as penetration tests.
Black-hat hackers: These bad guys are the main reason why people have such a bad stereotype of hackers! By hacking digital devices and networks, they break into systems without permission. They are also called unethical hackers whose hacking activities are entirely illegal.
Most of the time, what motivates these attackers is financial gain. They can break into a financial website or steal your credit card information. They may also sell stolen data on the black market.
Gray-hat hackers: In addition to black-hats and white-hats, there is another type of hacker called gray-hat. They share exactly the same skills and do the same work as each other. Only the goal of hacking differs.
Gray-hat hackers are more similar to black-hat hackers since they are both not hired as security engineers and get access to networks without permission. What sets them apart is their main intent.
Gray-hat hackers believe that the internet is not a safe place and sometimes they try to prove this by hacking networks and some of them report the vulnerability they found to the owner of that organization. In spite of the fact that they hack networks without permission, they can be helpful to organizations.
What is cybercrime?
In a general definition, cybercriminals are people who commit fraud with the use of the internet and computers. It is obvious that black-hat hackers are cybercriminals, since they take advantage of the data they are able to access without the authorization of the owners.
Cybercriminals may technically be called gray-hat hackers, but the laws of computer hacking crime vary according to the region. There are, however, laws in all regions against accessing a network without permission of its owners.
Is hacking a crime?
The act of hacking can’t be considered a crime in general. It really depends on many factors such as who hacks it and why. Hacking is actually what a lot of people do for a living and they earn money that way since It is essential for some industries to be sure their network is secure and safe.
Hacking can be considered a crime only under the condition of breaking into a private network with no permission. Society, however, views hacking as a crime.
To many organizations, hacking is not a crime, but it is an essential act that must be done by ethical hackers in order to make the website secure.
Security services are offered by several companies in various parts of the world by hackers. Keeping your organization information and database safe is their responsibility so that the chances of a breach are almost zero. The Swedish company SecureBug is the first crowd-sourced security platform in Scandinavia that allows white hackers to find bugs in websites before they are discovered by the cyber attackers.
Keep your chances of being attacked as low as possible by registering here!
