Black And White Clown Hat

Hackers aren't inherently bad — the word "hacker" doesn't mean "criminal" or "bad guy." Geeks and tech writers ofttimes refer to "black lid," "white hat," and "gray hat" hackers. These terms ascertain different groups of hackers based on their behavior.

The definition of the word "hacker" is controversial, and could mean either someone who compromises computer security or a skilled developer in the complimentary software or open-source movements.

Black Hats

Blackness-lid hackers, or simply "black hats," are the type of hacker the popular media seems to focus on. Blackness-chapeau hackers violate computer security for personal gain (such equally stealing credit menu numbers or harvesting personal data for auction to identity thieves) or for pure maliciousness (such as creating a botnet and using that botnet to perform DDOS attacks against websites they don't like.)

Black hats fit the widely-held stereotype that hackers are criminals performing illegal activities for personal gain and attacking others. They're the computer criminals.

A blackness-chapeau hacker who finds a new, "zero-twenty-four hour period" security vulnerability would sell it to criminal organizations on the black market or employ it to compromise computer systems.

Media portrayals of black-hat hackers may exist accompanied by airheaded stock photos like the below ane, which is intended as a parody.

White Hats

White-hat hackers are the opposite of the black-hat hackers. They're the "ethical hackers," experts in compromising computer security systems who use their abilities for practiced, upstanding, and legal purposes rather than bad, unethical, and criminal purposes.

For example, many white-hat hackers are employed to exam an organizations' computer security systems. The system authorizes the white-lid hacker to attempt to compromise their systems. The white-hat hacker uses their noesis of figurer security systems to compromise the organization's systems, just every bit a black hat hacker would. However, instead of using their access to steal from the organization or vandalize its systems, the white-hat hacker reports back to the organisation and informs them of how they gained admission, allowing the organization to improve their defenses. This is known every bit "penetration testing," and information technology's one example of an action performed by white-chapeau hackers.

A white-lid hacker who finds a security vulnerability would disclose information technology to the programmer, allowing them to patch their product and improve its security before it'southward compromised. Various organizations pay "bounties" or honour prizes for revealing such discovered vulnerabilities, compensating white-hats for their work.

Grey Hats

Very few things in life are clear black-and-white categories. In reality, there's often a gray expanse. A gray-hat hacker falls somewhere between a black hat and a white hat. A grey lid doesn't work for their own personal proceeds or to cause carnage, but they may technically commit crimes and do arguably unethical things.

For case, a black chapeau hacker would compromise a computer system without permission, stealing the data inside for their own personal proceeds or vandalizing the system. A white-hat hacker would ask for permission before testing the system'due south security and alert the organization afterwards compromising it. A greyness-chapeau hacker might try to compromise a computer organisation without permission, informing the organization afterward the fact and allowing them to set the trouble. While the grey-hat hacker didn't utilise their admission for bad purposes, they compromised a security organisation without permission, which is illegal.

If a gray-lid hacker discovers a security flaw in a slice of software or on a website, they may disclose the flaw publically instead of privately disclosing the flaw to the organization and giving them fourth dimension to fix it. They wouldn't take advantage of the flaw for their own personal gain — that would be black-hat behavior — but the public disclosure could cause carnage every bit blackness-hat hackers tried to accept advantage of the flaw before it was fixed.

"Black chapeau," "white hat," and "gray hat" can as well refer to behavior. For case, if someone says "that seems a bit black hat," that ways that the action in question seems unethical.

Image Credit: zeevveez on Flickr (modified), Adam Thomas on Flickr, Luiz Eduardo on Flickr, Alexandre Normand on Flickr