Hacking by Gauri, VIII D

 

Hacking is unauthorized access to a computer or a network. A hacker is a person who is competent in computer operating systems and netwoks who can exploit the vulnerabilities in a computer system or network to get in to it and make changes. Normally, anyone who attacks a computer or a network is called a hacker.

Hackers usually target computers connected to the internet. They can break the computer security and can cause damage to the computer and steal your personal information.

A person doing something illegal with a computer belonging to someone else without asking a permission of the owner is also called a hacker.

The computer hackers are generally categorised into three

• White hat hackers
• Black hat hackers
• Grey hat hackers

These categories are based on the motivation of the hacker and whether they are breaking the law.

White Hat Hackers

They are also known as "ethical hackers". White hat hackers are specialists who work as security specialists for companies -they may be an employee or may be doing freelance work.

White hat hackers are also experts like the black hat and use the same technology and tools to achieve it. The exception is they do it with the permission of the owners and they do it for good purposes like to find out the vulnerabilities of the system. It is highly paid job and there are many courses to learn ethical hacking.

You may find many tutorials on hacking online, but if you are trying to learn hacking remember it is illegal to do so on some one else's computer/networks without their consent.

Grey Hat Hackers

Grey hat hackers are a blend of both blak hat and white hat hackers. What they do is they hack in to systems/networks without the owners permission looking for vulnerabilities in it. If they find any issues they will report the same to the owner and may charge a fee for reporting or even fixing the issue. 

Though they may not have malicious intention and may not exploit the vulnerabilities they find, this is also illegal as they are doing it without the knowledge or permission of the owner(s) of the system.

Black Hat Hackers

They are the bad ones. Their objective is personal or financial gain. Black hat hackers are involved in cyber espionage (spying) and commit cyber crimes. Some of the do it just for the fun on achieving the taks, others steal vital personal data like your login credentials. At the higher levels they steal the security informations of a country, destruct the computer networks, birng down the services of a website