Due to the increased usage of the internet to many people, cybercriminals and hackers are all over cyberspace. These people are just waiting for every opportunity to attack when someone lowers their level of security and privacy. In order to protect your data or your business for that matter, it is important to understand the personalities behind this dangerous and unlawful crime.
Understanding Cybercrime
Cybercrime is any illegal activity that involves a computer or other computing devices, as well as mobile phones. Cybercrime is not only carried out for profit by cybercriminals, but it’s also done by cyberhackers to damage and disable computer networks for malicious intent.
The three types of cybercrime can be defined as:
- Crime to gain access to computer networks.
- Crime using computing devices like a weapon, such as DDoS attacks (Distributed Denial of Service).
- A crime where computers are used for the storage of stolen data.
Cybercrime is one of the biggest threats to businesses and organizations and includes a wide range of illegal and malicious activity that can compromise the security and integrity of data.
Different Types of Cyber Hackers
Cyber hacking is about gaining unauthorized access to a computer and computer network. But just who are these hackers, and what do they do?
Black Hat Cyber hacking
Black hat hackers are those who try to gain illegal and unauthorized access to computer networks and systems to obtain information for malicious intent. These cyber hackers often work alone, using the information they steal for their own purpose or to sell to other criminals for illegal use.
Often called “crackers”, black hat cyber hackers look for businesses and financial organizations with weak security, making them easy to hack into. They’re looking for personal and financial data, as well as passwords they can sell for profit. Black hats also try to damage network and computer systems by compromising and damaging their network security. Once compromised, hackers can shut down entire systems or make illegal and malicious changes to websites.
These black hat cyber hackers are the ones your business needs to worry about the most as a risk to your confidential data.
White Hat Cyber Hackers
White hats are also known as “ethical hackers”. They work with companies and organizations to remove viruses or to help reinforce the security of computer networks. These cyber hackers have authorized permission to access computer systems, using their ethical hacking techniques to secure a company’s data system.
Many large companies use white hat hackers to exploit their security systems and find any backdoors before black hat cyber hackers are able to enter the system illegally. Their ethical hacking provides useful information to organizations about the vulnerabilities of their security system so these weaknesses can be secured.
Grey hat
Falling in between the black and white hackers is the grey hacker. These cyberhackers exploit computer networks just like the black hat, but they don’t have the same malicious intent. They often violate security with practices that are illegal, however, they don’t typically use the information they steal for their own gain.
Bottomline
As time goes by, cyber hackers are continuing to find ways to attack any individuals anytime. This is the reason why knowing different types of these criminals is a good start in increasing your protection from cybercrimes and attacks.
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