The word “hacker” can inspire us with a dramatic image of a person hunched over his computer or laptop late at night, cracking a password and obtaining sensitive data or directly money. This image is given to us, above all, by the cinema. But the truth is, these incidents almost never happen.

But are all hackers the same?

Absolutely. It is a small glossary with a lot of tradition, which has been enlarged over time, but which many are unaware of. Greyhat hackers or gray hat hackers are characterized by running between “good and evil” in the hacking world, as this is how black hat hackers ( blackhats ) are usually identified, who are dedicated to looking for security flaws and exploiting them For their own benefit and to white hat hackers ( whitehats or “good hackers”), who are dedicated to looking for and investigating security holes and once they locate them, they notify the company in question or disseminate it publicly so that it can be resolved. They do not seek reward because their intention is altruistic, to improve safety in general.

The gray hat hackers move between one and the other. They do not seek to take advantage of a security hole directly , but if they discover it they try to make a cut by selling it to governments, the military or intelligence services. There is no altruism but neither is the intention to harm companies.

An example of a group of gray hat hackers is the Italians Hacking Team, who sell their spy tools to Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan or Saudi Arabia.

Types of hackers

Black Hat: criminals
White Hat : Ethical hackers working to protect systems and people.
Gray Hat : incursions between black hat and white hat.

Although the three main and best known types are black, gray and white hat hackers, there are many more. We review them one by one:

Black Hat

The term “black hat” originated in western movies, where the bad guys wore black hats and the good guys wore white hats. Thus, a black hat hacker is a person who tries to gain unauthorized entry into a system or network to exploit them for malicious reasons. The black hat hacker or Blackhat does not have any permission or authority to carry out his objectives. Attempts to inflict damage by compromising security systems, disrupting website and network functions, or shutting down systems. They often do this to steal or gain access to passwords, financial information, and other personal data.

White Hat

He is the perfect type of hacker to break the stereotype. The hacker in the white hat is good people. They are also called ethical hackers because they test existing Internet infrastructures to investigate loopholes in the system. They create algorithms and perform multiple methodologies to get into systems, just to strengthen them. If you imagine it as a padlock, they open it , solely to inform owners of how to make their security work better. White Hats have historically been instrumental in ensuring that large corporations have maintained a strong network framework against other hackers. From being government employees to being private consultants, white hackers help make the Internet a better and safer place.

Grey Hat

The Gray Hat or gray hat hacker moves between the other two. While they cannot use their abilities for personal gain, they can nevertheless have good and bad intentions. For example, a hacker who hacks into an organization and finds a certain vulnerability can leak it through the Internet or inform the organization about it. It all depends on the hacker. However, as soon as hackers use their hacking skills for personal gain, they turn into Black Hats. There is a fine line between the two. Because a gray hat hacker does not use his abilities for personal gain, he is not a black hat hacker . Also, because you are not legally authorized to hack into the cyber security of the organization, you cannot be considered a white hat either.

Red Hat

Another type of hacker who departs from the stereotype is the red hat hacker, who acts ruthlessly towards black hat hackers. Its only objective is to destroy everything that the ‘bad hackers’ carry out and bring down its entire infrastructure. A Red Hat hacker would watch out for the initiatives of a Black Hat, intercept it, and hack into the intruder’s system. Not only would this stop the attack, it would also put the hacker in question out of business.

Blue Hat

Its mission is to perfect new software. These blue hat hackers are hired to test the software for bugs before it is released. The name is believed to have come from the blue badges of Microsoft employees. Usually these are novice hackers with no desire to learn and who can use simple cyber attacks such as flooding our IP with overloaded packets that will lead to DoS attacks.

Green Hat

These hackers are fans of the hacking world. Mind you, these newbies have the desire to become quality hackers and are very curious to learn. They are often found engrossed in hacker communities bombarding their peers with questions.

Social Media Hacker

He’s the social media hacker. As the name implies, they focus on hacking social media accounts by using various techniques. This type of hacker is similar to the black hat hacker for his criminal intentions. Some call them purple hat or yellow hat hackers, but this is the most used in the world of hacking.

Suicide Hacker

This type of hacker gets its name from the notorious Suicide Bombers , people who do a lot of damage before they commit suicide. Similarly, a suicide hacker would know that his identity would be revealed, or that he would be caught at some point, but proceeds to make a hacking attempt anyway. It could be for money, or for fame or even more blunt, like a suicide bomber.

Script Kiddie

This subcategory of hacker represents novice hackers who are not qualified. They depend on programs and files to hack and don’t bother to learn how they work. They have little respect for skills and are not motivated to learn. The Script Kiddies can be white hat, black hat or gray.

Whistleblower

A malicious informant or whistleblower can be a spiteful or compromised employee or even hired by rivals to obtain trade secrets from their opponents. These hackers have the privilege of their easy access to information and their role within the company to hack into the system.