Understanding Cybersecurity Roles: A Guide to Identifying White, Black, Gray, and Other Categories of Hackers

“If you wish to learn about the various types of hackers in the online world and burst the Hollywood image of a hacker in your mind, keep reading on…”

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Whenever I used to imagine hackers, I always pictured this notorious guy wearing a ski mask glued to his laptop with green lines of text filling up the screen space. However dramatic that may look, it holds no truth. People think hackers are negative people in the online world, but we all know there’s more to the story.

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Just like there are good and bad guys in the real world with different shades of their personality, the types of hackers vary by their agenda, methodologies and skill practice. In this post, I’ll introduce the well-known and lesser-known kinds of hackers you should know.

This will help you understand what kind of protection you require for your system and who are the faceless criminals targeting your personal or business information. Before you become proactive for your safety, it is essential to understand what you are facing or fighting.

So now, let’s begin

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1. White Hat Hackers

Meet the right guys on the dark web. White hat hackers, also known as ethical hackers are the cybersecurity experts who help the Govt and organizations by performing penetration testing and identifying loopholes in their cybersecurity. They even do other methodologies and ensure protection from black hat hackers and other malicious cyber crimes.

Simply stated, these are the right people who are on your side. They will hack into your system with the good intention of finding vulnerabilities and help you remove virus and malware from your system.

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2. Black Hat Hackers

Taking credit for the negative persona around “hacking,” these guys are your culprits. A black hat hacker is the type of hacker you should be worried. Heard a news about a new cybercrime today? One of the black hat hackers may be behind it.

While their agenda may be monetary most of the time, it’s not always just that. These hackers look for vulnerabilities in individual PCs, organizations and bank systems. Using any loopholes they may find, they can hack into your network and get access to your personal, business and financial information.

3. Gray Hat Hackers

Gray hat hackers fall somewhere in between white hat and black hat hackers. While they may not use their skills for personal gain, they can, however, have both good and bad intentions. For instance, a hacker who hacks into an organization and finds some vulnerability may leak it over the Internet or inform the organization about it.

It all depends upon the hacker. Nevertheless, as soon as hackers use their hacking skills for personal gain they become black hat hackers. There is a fine line between these two. So, let me make it simple for you.

Because a gray hat hacker doesn’t use his skills for personal gain, he is not a black hat hacker. Also, because he is not legally authorized to hack the organization’s cybersecurity, he can’t be considered a white hat either.

So, these were the most commonly known and referred hackers. But there’s more. Let’s learn a little more about the other types of hackers as well today.

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4. Script Kiddies

A derogatory term often used by amateur hackers who don’t care much about their coding skills. These hackers usually download tools or use available hacking codes written by other developers and hackers. Their primary purpose is often to impress their friends or gain attention.

However, they don’t care about learning. By using off-the-shelf codes and tools, these hackers may launch some attacks without bothering about the quality of the attack. Most common cyber attacks by script kiddies might include DoS and DDoS attacks.

5. Green Hat Hackers

These hackers are amateurs in the online world of hacking. Consider them script kiddies but with a difference. These newbies have a desire to become full-blown hackers and are very curious to learn. You may find them engrossed in the hacking communities bombarding their fellow hackers with questions.

You can identify them by their spark to grow and learn more about the hacking trade. Once you answer a single question, the hackers will listen with undivided attention and ask another question until you answer all their queries.

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6. Blue Hat Hackers

These are another form of novice hackers much like script kiddies whose main agenda is to take revenge on anyone who makes them angry. They have no desire for learning and may use simple cyber attacks like flooding your IP with overloaded packets which will result in DoS attacks.

A script kiddie with a vengeful agenda can be considered a blue hat hacker.

7. Red Hat Hackers

Red Hat Hackers have an agenda similar to white hat hackers which in simple words is halting the acts of Blackhat hackers. However, there is a major difference in the way they operate. They are ruthless when it comes to dealing with black hat hackers.

Instead of reporting a malicious attack, they believe in taking down the black hat hacker completely. Red hat hackers will launch a series of aggressive cyber attacks and malware on the hacker that the hacker may as well have to replace the whole system.

8. State/Nation Sponsored Hackers

State or Nation sponsored hackers are those who have been employed by their state or nation’s government to snoop in and penetrate through full security to gain confidential information from other governments to stay at the top online.

They have an endless budget and extremely advanced tools at their disposal to target individuals, companies or rival nations.

9. Hacktivist

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If you’ve ever come across social activists propagandizing a social, political, or religious agenda, then you might as well meet hacktivists, the online version of an activist. Hacktivists are hackers or a group of anonymous hackers who think they can bring about social changes and often hack governments and organizations to gain attention or share their displeasure over opposing their line of thought.

10. Malicious Insider or Whistleblower

A malicious insider or a whistleblower may be an employee with a grudge or a strategic employee compromised or hired by rivals to garner trade secrets of their opponents to stay on top of their game.

These hackers may take privilege from their easy access to information and their role within the company to hack the system.

Types of Hackers: Wrap Up

I hope this post cleared up your thoughts on the kinds of hackers out there and helped you get a new insight into the hacking world.

It is essential to stay aware and vigilant to protect yourself from cyber threats and different types of hackers who may use even the smallest vulnerability in your system against you.

I hope you’ll stay safe and aware. Have a secure web experience and remain protected.

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28 thoughts on “10 Types of Hackers You Should Know”

Kartik Wathodkar

September 26, 2018 at 8:39 pm
Can’t identified which type of hacking is good or bad
Reply

Mad Grey Hater

October 10, 2018 at 5:50 am
Good guys are white hates, red hates, and green hates.
Bad guys would be grey hates, black Hates and possibly blue
Reply
*
Amatey egan
April 18, 2019 at 10:29 am
I love all hackers
Reply
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daniel shields

              [December 9, 2019 at 4:58 pm](https://tools.techidaily.com/malwarefox/products/)  
              people cant spell, they retards  
              [Reply](https://tools.techidaily.com/malwarefox/products/)  
              * ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/2f27b40a04226c39d616e4b9e4ffe62c?s=50&d=mm&r=g)  
              Chad  
              [February 1, 2022 at 10:49 pm](https://tools.techidaily.com/malwarefox/products/)  
              No not all hackers are bad , maybe just misinformed. Although when enough info is gathered they want to do good not bad .  
              [Reply](https://tools.techidaily.com/malwarefox/products/)  
     * ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d1ae72db488598cf04dae6ee33d279f8?s=50&d=mm&r=g)  
     richard  
     [May 23, 2019 at 7:49 am](https://tools.techidaily.com/malwarefox/products/)  
     it’s hats not hates  
     [Reply](https://tools.techidaily.com/malwarefox/products/)  
     * ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/24bf41449a0ec4d8c18f7700f671efae?s=50&d=mm&r=g)  
     You  
     [July 25, 2020 at 1:03 am](https://tools.techidaily.com/malwarefox/products/)  
     Correct  
     [Reply](https://tools.techidaily.com/malwarefox/products/)  
     * ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/933285225d6a05a99fe35d72b38ff17e?s=50&d=mm&r=g)  
     Anonymous  

     [November 21, 2020 at 10:02 pm](https://tools.techidaily.com/malwarefox/products/)  
     By the way Iam a green hat hacker  
     [Reply](https://tools.techidaily.com/malwarefox/products/)

VPP Hacker

October 25, 2019 at 6:38 pm
White Hat Hacking
Reply

John Crisp

September 26, 2020 at 5:43 pm
i hacked a game with a autoclicker
Reply
2.
Adrian Bialek
January 8, 2019 at 7:06 pm
Whaet dose it feel like to weare all these hates
Reply

Dalar Rose
April 5, 2019 at 9:56 pm
*What
*does
*wear
*hats
Reply

Christopher Morris

January 11, 2019 at 10:15 am
Hi i have been getting emails telling me my google account will be closed down completely very soon and there is 25 mails i have on my Gmail site still now with so many names on there claiming to be google security i have been getting these for a good while now, also telling me that different mail i have sent has not been accepted and i have not wrote mail to them evey time i open my mail page now i get more and more now telling me i will be closed down very shortly and will not get another account i have had the same mail ago from the word go, lots more people are telling me they have the same problem i have been through changing my password 4 times i still get these mails can’t googles real security do something about this there are now thousands of us getting this, can you please get your people onto the problem,……Chris Morris.
Reply
4.
abid

March 9, 2019 at 12:46 pm
It’s very informative for me.Thanks
Reply
5.
lol
April 25, 2019 at 6:03 pm
your pictures are really wierd. : P
Reply
6.
Mudasra saeed

June 27, 2019 at 7:11 pm
Informative and very helpful..
Reply
7.
Slow503
August 10, 2019 at 12:45 am
Theres gotta be another kind of hacker I would consider above grey and script; who just dont bother with all the stuff only helpful when they notice things that could be potentially used in bad ways. Not a hacktivists either cause alot those seem to want attention for themselves not for the issues. They have the basic knowledge and skills just dont want to do too much work that should really have been addressed by the software designers before evening allowing things to go live. Especially with the weak report systems white hats have to go thru to even be able to get anyone to listen or bother before it is too late.
Reply
8.
Robert
August 22, 2019 at 7:58 pm
This actually sucks… RIP
Reply
9.
Emmanuel

Click here

November 21, 2019 at 5:06 pm
Among all of the hackers, i only consider the whites to be helpful but others are so #dangerous!
Reply

fin ross

February 14, 2020 at 4:01 pm
I agree with you Emmanuel
Reply
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Emmanuel
January 25, 2022 at 3:24 pm
omg same emmanuel is soooo right
Reply
10.
sunny cheung

February 14, 2020 at 4:06 pm
you were not meant to put the hats were you?
Reply
11.
Max
July 23, 2020 at 2:13 am
Looking for a experienced professional black hat hacker to change my unversity grades
Must be able to show proof of work done and payment will be made
Reply
12.
a name
July 30, 2020 at 3:08 am
How bout the guys, that are curious and may hack to get all the knowledge just to satisfy their mind but usually not destructive and decades of exp.. labels are just boxes, its all relative
Reply
13.
ouchie
August 4, 2020 at 10:56 pm
cool and good
Reply
14.
Jaylynn
September 11, 2020 at 7:56 pm
Can hackers sometimes blur the lines of how they act? Like a black hat might act like a blue hat and so on?
Reply