--Originally published at Tech and no-tech
Has anyone tell you that the way you dress talks about your self and your personality? This is a common thing. You can know facts about people just by the way they dress. Another common thing is the matching or mismatching clothes colors on purpose or use certain color because they make you look better. This is, somehow, the case of hackers.
As I wrote on my last blog post, hackers are not always bad. People around the world have created this direct connection between hacking and harming. Hackers are normal people like you and me. These people are characterized for breaking cyber security of ensuring it, either in good or bad ways. Again, what makes them different is:
Hackers are divided into three different types of hackers, by “their hat color”:
The white hack, who hacks against a black hat in order to protect computer and network access and has the company’s permission to do so. – Study
The gray hat, who hacks not for evil and not for good, neutral in their cause. They usually try to sell their skills for monetary gain. – Study
A black hat, who hacks for evil and malicious intent and without permission. – Study
Black hats are the hackers that society usually know, or relate with the word “hacker”. These guys focus on harming and/or violating cyber security and that is why they fit the the stereotypes that hackers are criminals. There are groups of hackers, called hacktivists. These groups hack for more social purposes like:
White hats are also known as the ethical hackers. They are, thus, the opposite of the black hats. These guys fight the criminals. They ensure that cyber security exist and that it is good. These hackers are the evidence that not all heroes
What about the gray hats? Well, these guys are kind of difficult to categorize. They do not look out on doing bad, that is for sure. And they do not hack for their own personal gain, but they do unethical things. Legally and technically, they are criminals and do illegal stuff.
When people what some system to be hacked into, they usually pay these gray hats to do the job. So, as you can see, in this case, they are acting almost as black hats, though they do not do it for their benefit. Other gray hats might just hack an organization for fun and then tell the organization about it, so they can fix their problem. In this case, they do illegal hacking for a good cause and without harming anyone, kind of like a white hat.
Therefore, where do ethics start and end in hacking? Do ethics and legality should be directly connected? Should illegal hacking be legal if it is for ethical purposes? What do you think is the role of ethics in hacking?
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Certified Ethical Hacking (CEH) Certification
