A black-hat hacker is usually one who engages in cybercrime and uses hacking for financial gain, cyber espionage, or other malicious motives such as implanting malware into computer systems. A black hat hacker is a person who tries to find computer vulnerabilities and exploit them for personal financial gain or other malicious reasons. This is different from white hat hackers, who are security specialists who use hacking methods to find vulnerabilities that black hat hackers can exploit. One of the most famous hackers is Kevin Mitnick, who was once the most wanted cybercriminal in the world. As a black hat hacker, he hacked more than 40 major companies, including IBM and Motorola, and even the U.S. National Defense Alert System. He was later arrested and imprisoned. Upon his release, he became a cybersecurity consultant using his hacking knowledge for white-hat hacking purposes. Unlike white hat hackers, black hat hackers have no common, standardized code or internal regulations. [8] [9] However, there are a few forms of organization: black hat call centers, resellers, and malware vendors.
[10] [11] A black hat hacker has been used in the past to describe someone who has malicious intentions – such as stealing information, defrauding or disrupting systems – but increasingly specific terms are being used to describe these individuals. Hacking has become an integral intelligence-gathering tool for governments, but it is more common for hackers to work alone or with organized crime organizations for easy money. If a white-hat hacker discovers a vulnerability, they will only exploit it with permission and won`t tell others about it until it`s patched. On the other hand, the black hat will exploit it illegally or tell others how to do it. The gray hat will not exploit it illegally and tell others how to do it. The hacker can also sell these exploits to other criminal organizations. The term black hat has been used to distinguish criminal hackers from hackers white hat and gray hat. These categories were inspired by early Western films, where heroes could be identified by the white hats they wore and villains by their black hats. The main difference between the two is motivation. Unlike black-hat hackers, who gain access to systems illegally, maliciously, and often for personal gain, white-hat hackers work with organizations to identify vulnerabilities in their systems and update them accordingly.
They do this to ensure that black-hat hackers cannot illegally access system data. Subscribe to America`s largest dictionary and get thousands of other definitions and an advanced search – ad-free! White Hat hackers create honeypots that serve as decoys to lure cybercriminals, distract them, or help white hats gain valuable information about attackers. “Black Hat.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/black%20hat. Retrieved 4 October 2022. White Hat hackers – sometimes called “ethical hackers” or “good hackers” are the antithesis of black hats. They use computer systems or networks to identify their vulnerabilities and make recommendations for improvement. Suddenly, however, he became aware of a small black spot far forward in the middle of the uncongested track. A black hat hacker is a hacker who violates computer security for personal gain or maliciously. [1] Over the past few decades, there have been several notable hackers whose exploits helped define many of the laws we have today. Many gray hats believe that the Internet is not safe for businesses and see their mission as making it safer for individuals and organizations.
They do this by hacking websites and networks and causing chaos to show the world that they are right. Gray hats often say they don`t hurt with their ideas. Sometimes they are simply curious to hack into a high-level system – without regard for privacy and many other laws. White hat hackers use the same hacking methods as black hats, but the main difference is that they first have permission from the system owner, which makes the process completely legal. Instead of exploiting vulnerabilities to distribute code, hackers work with network operators to fix the problem before others discover it. Some Black Hat organizations even have call centers that they use to make outbound calls and claim to work for a well-known tech organization like Microsoft. In this scam, the hacker tries to convince potential victims to allow remote access to their computers or download software. By granting access or downloading recommended software, the victim inadvertently allows criminals to collect passwords and banking information, or stealthily take control of the computer and use it to attack others. To add another insult, the victim is usually charged an exorbitant fee for this “help”. Gray hat hackers can sometimes violate common laws or ethical standards, but they don`t have the typical malicious intent of a black hat hacker. U.S.
and state agencies can punish hackers under a number of computer crime laws and other state and federal laws. Penalties for sentencing different categories of misdemeanours and felonies include fines, imprisonment or both. Black Hat hackers have their own conventions, two of which are the largest DEFCON and BlackHat. Black Hat conventions are often followed by security experts and academics who want to learn from black hat hackers. Law enforcement officials also attend these conventions, sometimes even using them to stop a black-hat hacker, as happened in 2001 when a Russian programmer was arrested the day after DEFCON for writing software that decrypted an Adobe e-book format. How far has Congress really progressed in terms of race if it went from one black senator to two in 50 years? If you watch the news and follow the technology, you know what a hacker is, but you may not realize that hackers fall into different categories known as black hat, white hat, and gray hat. The terms come from old Western movies of American popular culture, where the protagonists wore white or light hats and the antagonists wore black hats. The term “black hat hacker” is derived from old Western movies where the good guys wore white hats and the bad guys wore black hats. Black Hat hackers often start as inexperienced script kiddies who use purchased hacking tools to exploit vulnerabilities.
Some are trained to hack bosses who want to make money fast. The main black hats are usually experienced hackers who work for sophisticated criminal organizations that sometimes provide collaboration tools to their employees and offer service agreements to customers, just like legitimate companies. Black Hat malware kits sold on the dark web sometimes even include warranties and customer service. Sometimes, if companies don`t respond immediately or don`t comply, gray-hat hackers can become black hats by posting the point of exploitation on the internet or even exploiting the vulnerability itself. Learn about the different types of hackers and why the Black Hat Community Study can help businesses. Black hats are motivated for selfish reasons, such as financial gain, revenge or simply to wreak havoc. Sometimes their motivation can be ideological by targeting people they strongly disagree with. A white hat hacker, also called an ethical hacker, is the antithesis of a black hat hacker. White Hat hackers are not cybercriminals, but security specialists hired by companies to perform tasks such as penetration testing and vulnerability assessments on their systems to improve their security defenses.
Some laws have been passed to help law enforcement agencies investigate and locate black-hat hackers. But in the case of black women, another study found no lack of interest. Even the House of Representatives, arguably more Democratic, has only 10% black members. In most cases, gray hats provide valuable information for businesses. Nevertheless, the white hat community – and much of the cyber world – do not consider their methods ethical. Gray hat hacking is illegal because the hacker has not received permission from an organization to attempt to infiltrate their systems. The origin of the term is often attributed to hacker culture theorist Richard Stallman (although he denies inventing it)[2] to compare the exploitative hacker to the white-hat hacker who hacks in a protective way by pointing out vulnerabilities in computer systems that need to be patched. [3] Black/white hat terminology comes from the Western genre of American popular culture, where black and white hats refer to evil and heroic cowboys respectively to resemble the opposition of good and evil. [4] The dichotomy between black and white hat was also highlighted in the cartoon Spy versus Spy in Mad Magazine. Somewhere between white and black are hackers in gray hats. Gray hat pirates stage a mix of black and white hat activity.
Gray hat hackers often look for vulnerabilities in a system without the owner`s permission or knowledge. If problems are detected, they report them to the owner and sometimes charge a small fee to fix the problem.