Hacking — The Good and The Bad

Photo by cyrus Gomez on Unsplash

Quite often, I am asked, "…do good hackers exist amongst the bad hackers…?" This is when I often have to look back to my experience as one of the first Computer Crime Team members in Australia. We achieved our country's first jail term for 'unauthorised access to a computer aka 'hacker'.

From this experience and over the years, I have observed that hackers fall into three categories or sub-groups:

1. White Hats
2. Black Hats
3. Grey Hats

White Hats — generally work for security organisations and are assigned to improve and secure computer services by identifying and obtaining security flaws.

Black Hats — are a varied group who use their skills to cause problems for others and can be motivated by a range of motivations and skillsets:

• Some direct their destructive actions at a targeted company or group and are often referred to as 'angry hackers'
• A less skilled group with lower 'hacking' skills who use hacking tools to cause mischief for fun aka known as 'script kiddies' and;
• Those that are interested in political and economic upheaval and view technology as the means to accomplishing a goal, aka 'agenda hackers'