A hacker has knowledge of Linux, computer networks, cryptography, and other subjects. Ethical hackers are not widely known. When they hear the phrase “hacking,” they look up criminals. But not every hacker is malicious. Some of them employed their skills in legal activities.

They accumulate advanced knowledge of programming languages and operating systems, find problems in systems, and identify the causes of such vulnerabilities.

Here are the three main categories of hackers. Let’s discuss about them in this article.

What are the three types of hackers?

Black hat hackers, white hat hackers, and grey hat hackers are the three major types of hackers. Unauthorised access to computers, systems, or networks is frequently associated with hackers. Not all hacking is malicious or illegal.

Hacking is nothing more than using computer knowledge to address a specific issue in its primary sense. There are several different sorts of hackers, and many hacking actions are advantageous since they reveal code flaws that aid software engineers in improving goods.

There are 3 major hats in hacking:

• White Hats
• Grey Hats
• Black Hats

However, there are some others that have also cropped up over time such as:

• Green Hats
• Blue Hats
• Red Hats

Let’s learn what all these different types of hackers are and how to be a hacker works.

Black hat hackers:

The term “Black-Hat Hacker” refers to hackers who access systems without the owners’ consent. Black hat hackers are cybercriminals that illegally crack systems with malicious intent.  These vulnerabilities serve as access points for these hackers. They illegally hack into systems. They manipulate people and harm using their abilities. What is Black hat hacking? Black hat hackers build malware, carry out numerous attacks, and violate system security. They can steal users’ passwords, data, and credit card information by compromising system security. Black-hat hackers get revenue by selling credit cards and data on the dark web. To exact revenge, they also ruin anyone’s reputation. Users are occasionally the victims of data theft and blackmail. They also use links and attachments to hack into social media accounts. Some nations (including China, Russia, and the USA) use black hat hackers to steal military-related information from other nations.

Under these organizations they perform tasks such as:

• Installing in backdoors
• Maintaining access to hacked systems
• Privilege escalation procedures
• Downloading confidential, delicate, or intellectual data
• Installing malicious software like ransomware
• The creation of phishing emails and links

Examples of infamous black hats include:

• Kevin Mitnick (Most wanted cybercriminal in U.S history)
• Julian Assange aka Mendax (Creator of Wikileaks)
• Hamza Bendelladj aka Bx1 (Latter owner of the ZeuS Banking Malware)
• Kevin Poulsen (Dark Dante)
• Robert Tappan Morris (Creator of the morris worm)

White Hat Hackers:

Ethical hackers are another name for white-hat hackers. They have licensed hackers who take classes to learn how to hack. These trustworthy hackers work to protect private data and websites. Organizations and governments are becoming aware that they require ethical hackers as cyberattacks increase. They defend databases and software against assaults involving malware, phishing, and SQL injection. The government hires white hat hackers to protect their websites and databases. These hackers also work for space organisations. Some ethical hackers collaborate with companies to identify software vulnerabilities. They hack systems with the same methods as black hat hackers but with authorization from the system owners. Here it becomes legal.  They create awareness about online dangers and how to avoid them.

Under these organizations they perform tasks such as:

• Monitoring networks.
• Hacking computers ethically to identify vulnerabilities and report them so they may be fixed.
• Hacking computers ethically to identify vulnerabilities and report them so they may be fixed.
• Establishing honeypots (Traps for the attackers).
• Keeping an eye out for suspicious activity on the network.

Famous examples of such hackers include:

• Jeff Moss (DEF CON founder)
• Richard Stallman (Founder of the GNU project)
• Tim Burners-Lee (Creator of the World Wide Web)
• Linus Torvalds (Creator of Linux)
• Tsutomu Shimomura (The man that caught Kevin Mitnick)

Grey Hat Hacker:

Black and white hat hackers combine to form gray-hat hackers. Grey hat hackers are the balance between white hats and black hats. These sorts of hackers compromise systems without the owners’ consent. They are not malicious in their intentions. This particular form of hacking is still prohibited, though. However, they never provide any information to cybercriminals. They discover problems and notify the owner. These grey hat hackers can ask for a little amount to fix it. However, some businesses disregard grey hat hackers. As they are not subject to the same guidelines as ethical hackers. These kinds of hackers do not threaten or harm anyone.

Grey hats have a quite controversial historical record. This makes them hard to classify, especially if their moral compass goes a little haywire down the line or what they did seems more black hat-ish than white hat-ish. Some even wind up in jail because of their actions.

But some hackers rise to be the heroes of the people and the enemy of the government and big organizations.

Some famous examples of grey hat hackers are:

• Anonymous (World famous hacktivist group)
• HD Moore (Creator of Metasploit)
• Adrian Lamo (aka the homeless hacker)
• Khalil Shreateh (Hacked the Facebook account of Mark Zuckerburg)

White Hat vs Black Hat Hackers vs Gray-Hat Hackers:

The main difference between white, black, and gray hat hackers is the motivation or intent that each type of hacker has when they break into computer systems.

Other types of hackers:

There are other types and sub-types of hackers, even though almost all fall into one of the three categories (black hat, white hat, or grey hat).

Green Hat Hackers:

Green hat hackers are “green” in the sense that they lack the technical skills of more experienced hackers and are untrained. They are also amateur hackers, although they differ slightly from script kids. They are interested in hacking and aspire to be full-fledged hackers. They are inspired by the hackers and inquire about a few things. Hackers will listen to their question’s novelty when they respond to it. Green hats could use social methodological approaches like phishing to get around security measures. Green hats may upgrade to White, Grey, or Black Hat hackers as they continue to move up the ranks.

Blue Hat Hackers:

They are newbies in the hacking world, much like the script kiddies. a blue hat could also mean an external security professional brought into test software for vulnerabilities prior to its release. They are referred to as blue hat hackers if they enrage a script kiddie and threaten to revenge them. Blue Hat hackers get revenge on those who have challenged them or offended them. Blue hat hackers share the same lack of interest in education as the Script Kiddies.

Red Hat Hackers:

Red Hat Hackers are also known as vigilante hackers. The eagle-eyed hackers are another name for Red hat hackers also. Red hat hackers work to stop black hat hackers in the same way as white hat hackers do. But they never mess with Black Hat Hacker. They operate quite differently from one another. When dealing with malware operations by black hat hackers, they get brutal. They do this by destroying all data and backups of their target, and usually render the system useless. Red hat hackers will continue to target them aggressively so that the hacker may realise they need to replace the entire system.

Conclusion:

Despite white hat hackers’ best efforts, malicious hackers always explore new vulnerabilities to exploit. It is crucial to have an additional layer of security that guards against all types of online dangers.

You can protect your whole digital life from hackers using powerful privacy features like a firewall, built-in VPN, password protection, and others.

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