The Good, the Bad, and the in Between: White Hat vs Black Hat Hackers
In the world of hacking, there are two types of hackers: white hat and black hat. White hat hackers are the good guys. They use their skills to find security vulnerabilities and then work with the companies to fix them. Black hat hackers are the bad guys. They exploit security vulnerabilities for personal gain or to wreak havoc. There is a third type of hacker, too: the gray hat hacker. Gray hat hackers are a mix of the good and bad. They might find a security vulnerability and then tell the company about it — but only after they’ve taken advantage of it themselves first.
Now that you know the difference between these three types of hackers, let’s take a closer look at white hat and black hat hackers.
White Hat Hackers
White hat hackers are ethical hackers. They use their hacking skills for defensive purposes only. That means they hack systems to find security vulnerabilities so they can be fixed before black hat hackers can exploit them. A lot of white hat hackers work as independent consultants. Others work for organizations like the military, intelligence agencies, or large corporations. Some white hat hackers even work for organizations that have been targets of black hat hacks — helping them to beef up their security so they won’t be hacked again.
White hat hacking is a legitimate profession. In fact, many companies encourage white hat hacking by offering bug bounties. A bug bounty is a cash reward given to a white hat hacker who finds and reports a security vulnerability. The size of the bounty depends on how critical the security vulnerability is. For example, Google offers bug bounties that range from $100 to $31,337!
Black Hat Hackers
Black hat hackers are malicious hackers who use their skills for personal gain or to cause damage. They exploit security vulnerabilities to steal data, money, or intellectual property. They might also plant viruses or launch denial-of-service attacks (DoS attacks). DoS attacks are when a hacker overloads a system with traffic so it crashes and becomes unavailable to users who need it — like when you try to load a website but it says “Error 503 Service Unavailable.” Black hat hacking can lead to serious legal consequences if you’re caught, so most black hat hacks are done anonymously.
What motivates black hat hacking? For some black hat hackers, it’s simply about showing off their skills and causing mischief. Others do it for financial gain — either by selling stolen data on the dark web or holding systems ransom until their demands are met (this is called ransomware). Regardless of their motivations, black hat hackers cause billions of dollars in damages each year — which is why we need white hat hackers to help us defend against them!
Conclusion
There are three types of hackers: white hat, black hat, and gray hat — each with its motives and methods. White hats use their skills for defensive purposes only; they want to find and fix security vulnerabilities before anyone can exploit them. On the other hand, black hats exploit those same vulnerabilities for personal gain or to cause havoc. And then there are gray hats; they walk the line between good and bad, using their skills for both offensive and defensive purposes. No matter what type of hacker you encounter, remember: not all hacking is bad!
