When comes to hackers, most of the people will have the thought that the bored teenager trying to break down a website or the cybercriminal infiltrating our computer. However, there’s definitely not that simple as we thought.
It is usually seen as controversial for ‘hacker’. ‘hacker’ is a term that has had both positive and negative connotations nowadays. Originally, the term ‘hacker’ arose during the 1960s and was used to signify someone who has developed a high degree of skills in overcoming technical problems and solving computer issues. But it also refers to someone that uses his technical expertise to gain access to computer systems or networks that they have no right to. So we can see the word in these two different perspectives.
The different types of hackers
We usually make a distinction between three different types of hackers by using references to hat color informally. They are white hats，black hats and grey hats.
White Hats: White hat hackers, is also known as the type of ethical hackers，try to use their hacking-skills in a more positive manner. Most of them are hired by companies or organizations to work on their cybersecurity by doing penetration testings, and subsequently improve it. Therefore the potential security vulnerabilities in their cybersecurity can be tracked down before a criminal exploits them first.
Black Hats: A black hat is the kind of malicious hacker. They usually use their high level of skills for their own purposes, usually to be illegal or unethical. For instance, they attempt to access to computer systems or networks without authorization, try to bring down websites or systems, steal data and information, spread malware, commit identity theft or fraud by using DDOS-attacks or carry out other harmful actions. But a few of black hat hackers often do this for fun to test their skills.
Grey Hats: The grey hat hackers is the kindof hackers that fall somewhere between the black hats and white hats. Grey hat hackers are not really ethical hackers and are usually not hired to help improve cybersecurity. They usually try to break into certain computer systems without authorization, out of curiosity, and may let their target know where the vulnerabilities are and sometimes even offer the solutions for them. They do not have bad intentions and do not carry out the harmful action as the black hat hackers do.
Famous hackers
There are many famous technologists have been considered hackers, including Vinton Cerf, Donald Knuth, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, black hat hackers are more likely to gain notoriety as hackers. Gates was also caught breaking into corporate systems as a teenager before founding Microsoft.
How do you become a hacker?
You may think that hackers tend to like be alone, but I have clarify to you that you are wrong. Hacking is a skill that, for the most part, must be practiced and hackers intend to share information and tradecraft with each other in the forums. You can’t take a university course to become an ethical hacker, but you can try to specialize in IT, by studying computer sciences, for example. You’re also required to obtain a CEH-certificate to be allowed to work as an ethical hacker. An ethical hacker is often employed as an IT Security Consultant by IT-consultancy companies. Their work mainly include checking to find the systems’ weaknesses, cproviding recommendations to fix the issues and carrying them out.
As I explained above, a hacker is not simply just about cybercriminal. Hacking is a skill that can be used for many positive aspects.
However, with the black hat hackers presence，the internet is still unsecure. So protecting yourself online is extremely important. A VPN service is where comes in to this end. A VPN will encrpyt your traffic to protect all your data you sent and receive to be private, even the hackers with high lever of skills can do nothing about it.
