CATEGORIES OF HACKERS

There are a number of categories of hackers such as Black Hats who are highly skilled, but have malevolent and detrimental intent White Mats, in contrast, are hackers who use their talent to protect and defend networks. Gray Hats hack for different reasons either ethically or unethically depending on the situation and circumstances at hand.

 

There are four basic kinds of hacks:

·         IP Hack: You hire someone to hack a specific IP address, giving them little or no information beforehand (Be careful if the IP address is an overseas server. You don't want hackers hacking the wrong IP address, like a foreign government's computers, causing an international incident);

·         Application Hack: A much more sophisticated hack that can delve deep into databases and down production servers. Only experienced hackers, with strict guidelines governing their actions, should be allowed to perform such tests. Never hire a "reformed" black-hat hacker for this type of test;

·         Physical Infrastructure Hack: This is where people try to get into your facilities to access your systems or go dumpster diving looking for confidential information such as passwords discarded on sticky notes;

·         Wireless Hack: War-driving is the new term to describe this type of attack where wireless access points are  exploited from the back of a van. Ethical hackers do the same thing, but report their findings back to you instead of stealing your passwords. Have them check out your teleworkers as well to see if home offices are a source of entry to your network.

The hacker community (the set of people who would describe themselves as hackers, or who would be described by others as hackers) falls into at least three partially overlapping categories.