Hacker Types

   Hackers are people who seek and exploit weaknesses in a computer system or computer network. The reason why they do this varies, it may be for a profit, joy, as a part of a challenge, to protest or as a job. According to their knowledge and objective, we can classify them in the following way.

Black Hat Hackers

   They are the computer criminals, the "bad guys". They violate security for little reason beyond maliciousness or for personal gain. They form the known stereotype, often portrayed by the community. They often look for the most vulnerable part of a code, exploit
it and gain access to a system. Moreover, they also design viruses for computers. They have a wide knowledge of computing and their main motivation is money. They receive this name because in old films, this kind of hackers would wear black hats. Sometimes they are also called Crackers.

White Hat Hackers

   This kind of hackers would often be considered the "good guys". They usually begin as Black Hats. Sometimes, they hack into a company's system and then end up being hired by it, to inform about vulnerable points in the system, in order to reinforce it and avoid any future security breaches. Banks have a bigger amount of hired White Hat Hackers, because a small bug in their system could be enough to cause huge consequences. Their job is to stop Black Hat Hackers from succeeding.

Grey Hat Hackers

   Grey Hat Hackers are the ones that are in the middle between White Hats and Black Hats. Their actions may be malicious and benevolent at the same time. They have as much knowledge as a Black Hat and, usually, this kind of hackers are people who are just starting.

Crackers

   They are included in the group of Black Hat Hackers. They are the ones who vulnerate a system and find the way to make copies of it, and offer them publicly. In other words, they make illegal copies of propietary software and distribute it freely. For example, they distribute a version of an OS or a programme. Due to the fact they allow anyone to get the cracked version, they are not making any business out of this. Therefore, the income they are getting is through publicity or advertisements. They tend to identify themselves with a nickname, and use reverse engineering to successfully hack software.

Script Kiddies

   Script Kiddies are the hackers that only have some basic knowledge. They use programmes written by others to vulnerate systems, and if they succeed, they strangely know what is going on behind the screen. They know a few things about programming but not too much, usually they will follow a tutorial they find on the internet.

Newbies

   Newbies are those who have just started hacking, they strangely succeed and if they do, they don't understand what they have done. They know just the basic of programming, they are inoffensive and they are looking for more information about hacking. In many cases, they boast about having hacked and become a Lammer, but in other cases, they look for further knowledge and become a hacker.

Lammers

   This kind of "hackers" aren't actually hackers. They are just people who say they are hackers, boast about having been able to vulnerate a piece of software following a tutorial and have no knowledge at all about programming. They are way too far from being a hacker, as they miss the knowledge and also, if they were hackers, they wouldn't be saying it publicly.

For further information, you can click on one of the following links: Hacker, Hacker Hat Colors, Hacker Types (spanish).

Sources

• How to Geek
• Axel San Miguel
• Wikipedia