15 Types of Hackers you should know

The term “hacker” is a familiar word to almost everyone who gets in touch with modern technology. However, not everyone knows the entire concept of hacking. Is a Hacker a Criminal or a Good one?  

For that, we must know about types of hackers including their targets and their motives.

Who is a Hacker?

A Hacker is a skilled computer expert who uses their knowledge to win against a problem. Simply a hacker can be defined as a person who uses their technical knowledge to exploit bugs or vulnerabilities to break into computer systems.

Types of Hackers 

There are different kinds of Hackers with different motives

1. Black Hat Hacker

Black Hat Hackers are the types of hackers who break into computer networks or systems with negative intentions such as stealing credit card information, altering public databases, to steal money or sensitive information.

Simply they are the bad guys. 

Famous black hat hackers have robbed millions of dollars, and invaluable private data from banks and financial institutions.

2. White Hat Hacker

White Hat hackers are the opposite of the black hat, They are also known as ethical hackers or cybersecurity experts who help the Government and organizations by performing penetration testing and they create algorithms to break existing internet networks, systems, or websites with the permission of the owners to solve the bugs in them. 

Simply they are the good guys. 

They even ensure protection from black hat hackers and other malicious cyber crimes. They will hack into your system with the positive aim of finding vulnerabilities and helping you remove viruses and malware from your system or to fix bugs.

3. Grey Hat Hacker

These are hackers who exploit the internet systems only to make public some information. They hack into an organization, with some vulnerability and they may leak it over the Internet or inform the organization about it. That would be of benefit to everyone. Gray hat hackers fall in between white hat and black hat hackers. They don’t possess the bad intentions of black hats.

Gray hat hackers cannot be considered black hat hackers as they don’t use their skills for personal gain. Also, they can’t be considered white hats either not because he is not legally authorized to hack the organization's data 

4. Red Hat Hacker

The Red Hat Hackers are similar to white hat hackers. The aim of the red hat guy is to find black hat hackers, stop the acts of Blackhat hackers, and destroy their schemes.

Instead of reporting a malicious attack, they take down the black hat hacker completely. Red hat hackers will launch a series of aggressive cyberattacks and malware on the hacker that the hacker may as well have to replace the whole system. It clears that they are ruthless when dealing with black hat hackers.

5. Blue Hat Hacket

The Blue hat hacker is another form of beginner hacker much like script kiddies. 

The main aim of a blue hat hacker is to take revenge on anyone who makes them angry. 

They have no desire for learning deeper into ethical hacking and may use simple cyberattacks like flooding your IP with overloaded packets which will result in DoS attacks, attacks made using techniques like affecting a website with too much traffic using a script.

The blue hat deploys readily available techniques but specifically targets an entity out of a bad intention.

6. Green Hat Hackers

Green hat hackers are the set of individuals who want to observe and learn about the world of hacking. These hackers are the newbies in the online world of hacking. 

They are also a type of scrip kiddies but with a difference. Because they have a desire to become ethical hackers and they are very curious to learn. They join learning communities to watch videos and tutorials about hacking.

You can identify them easily as want to grow and learn more about the hacking trends. If we answer one question, the hackers will listen with undivided attention and ask another question until you answer all their problems and doubts.

7. Social Media Hacker

They focus on hacking social media accounts by using various techniques as its name implies. This hacker type is similar to black hat hackers for their criminal intentions, and data theft. 

8. State/Nation Sponsored Hackers

State or Nation sponsored hackers are those who have been employed by their state or nation’s government to penetrate vulnerabilities through full security to protect against hacking their confidential information from other governments.

They have a huge budget and advanced tools to target individuals, companies, or nations.

9. Social Engineering Hackers

Social Engineering hackers are the ones who use psychological manipulation to get private content of people or perform certain actions with the social engineering techniques like Pretexting, Vishing, Phishing, Spear phishing, Water holing, and Baiting. It is a more complex crime scheme.

10. Whistle Blower Hacker

These are the types of computer hackers who leak sensitive information from within an organization, especially data under the umbrella of government agencies.

11. Script Kiddies

Script Kiddies are the newbies who just entered ethical hacking or people who just know only to run some pre-written tools or just have some downloaded hacking software. They don’t cause excessive damage, particularly because of the little skill or effort they put into their hacking. 

These hackers would just run a website against software and simply disrupt the regular activity of a website by sending overloading traffic, or repeatedly running transactions, Impact of scrip kiddie is significant but not really.

12. Elite Hackers

Elite Hackers are the individuals who are the real experts and innovators in the field of hacking.

13. Cyber Terrorist

Cyber Terrorists are politically motivated attackers who break into computer systems to stir up violence 

14. Hacktivist

Hacktivists are the types of hackers who break into systems, networks, and infrastructures just to draw attention to a dangerous social cause. they are the protesters of the internet.

Hacktivism is defacing websites and uploading promotional material so that the viewers would receive info based on the hacker's need not the need of the developer of the website.

15. Malicious Insider

Malicious insiders or whistleblowers are the type of computer hackers who leak sensitive information from within an organization, especially data under the government agencies Companies may hire whistleblowers to grab trade secrets of their opponents to stay on top of their game.

Meet you soon with another section related to Information Technology till then have a good day...