Introduction to Hacking, Hacker and Hacker Classes

What is Hacking?

Hacking refers to exploiting system vulnerabilities and compromising security controls to gain unauthorized or inappropriate access to system resources. It can be done to steal and redistribute intellectual property, leading to a loss in business. Hacking involves modifying system or application features to achieve a goal outside its creator's original purpose.

How is hacking done?

The majority of the time, network programming or scripts are used in hacking. The creation of viruses and worms, the execution of denial-of-service (DoS) attacks, the establishment of unauthorised remote access connections to a device using trojans or backdoors, creating botnets, packet sniffing, phishing, and password racking are all examples of network hacking techniques.

Who is a Hacker?

A hacker is an intelligent individual and a skilled engineer or programmer with excellent computer skills, along with the ability to create and explore the computer's software and hardware and has enough knowledge to discover vulnerabilities. It is a person who breaks into a system or network without authorization to destroy, steal sensitive data, or perform malicious activity.

What is the motive behind Hacking?

The motive behind hacking could be to steal critical information or services, for a thrill, intellectual challenge, curiosity, experiment, knowledge, financial gain, prestige, power, peer recognition, vengeance and vindictiveness, among other reasons.

For some, hacking is a hobby. Their intention can either be to gain knowledge or to poke around to do illegal things. Some have malicious intent, like stealing business data, credit card information, social security numbers, and email passwords.

Hacker Classes

Black Hats are individuals who use their skills for illegal or malicious purposes i.e., they are generally involved in criminal activities. They are also known as crackers.
White Hats are individuals who use their skills for defensive purposes. They help to find various vulnerabilities in a system or network and help vendors improve products by checking limitations and making them more secure. White Hat hackers have permission to Hack from the owner of the system.
Grey Hats are individuals who work both offensively and defensively at various times. Basically, a combination of Black and White Hat hackers.
Suicide Hackers are individuals who aim to bring down critical infrastructure for a "cause" and are not worried about the consequences just like a Suicide Bomber.
Script Kiddies are unskilled individuals who compromise systems by running scripts, tools, and software developed by real hackers.
Cyber Terrorists are individuals who are motivated by religious or political beliefs to create fear through the large-scale disruption of computer networks.
State-sponsored hackers are individuals who are employed by the government to penetrate, gain top-secret information and damage the information systems of other governments.
Hacktivists are individuals who promote a political or social agenda by hacking, especially by defacing or disabling their websites. Common targets include government agencies, multinational corporations, and any other entity that they perceive as a threat.