where to hire white hat hackers

Introduction：

1、What are White Hat, Black Hat, and Red Hat Hackers？ Different Types of Hacking Explained

2、What's the Difference Between Black-Hat and White-Hat Hackers？

What are White Hat, Black Hat, and Red Hat Hackers？ Different Types of Hacking Explained ♂

　　Welcome to the movies, everyone! 🍿 Have you ever heard the term white hat or black hat hacker, and wondered what it means?

　　Well, in this article, you will learn how hackers are classified by comparing them to a Marvel or DC hero that more or less represents them and what they do.

　　Hats on Silhoettes | Credit: Wallpaperflare.com

　　A hacker is an individual who uses their skills to breach cybersecurity defences. In the world of Cybersecurity, hackers are typically classified by a ‘hat’ system. This system likely came from old cowboy film culture where the good characters typically wore white hats and the bad ones wore black hats.

　　There are 3 major hats in the cyberspace:

　　White Hats

　　Grey Hats

　　Black Hats

　　However, there are some others that have also cropped up over time such as:

　　Green Hats

　　Blue Hats

　　Red Hats

　　Let’s dive in and learn what all these different types of hackers do, shall we? 🙃

　　Captain America | Credit: Wallpaperaccess.com

　　White hats are just like Marvel’s Captain America 🛡️. No matter the day, time, or age, they always stand up for what’s right and protect civilians and organizations at large by finding and reporting vulnerabilities in systems before the black hats do.

　　They usually work for organizations and take roles such as a Cybersecurity Engineer, Penetration Tester, Security Analyst, CISO (Chief Information Security Officer), and other security positions.

　　Under these organizations they perform tasks such as:

　　Scanning networks

　　Configuring IDSs (Intrusion Detection Systems)

　　Ethically hacking computers to find vulnerabilities and report them so they can be addressed

　　Programming honeypots (Traps for the attackers 😼)

　　Monitoring network activity for suspicious activity

　　Famous examples of such hackers include:

　　Jeff Moss (DEF CON founder)

　　Richard Stallman (Founder of the GNU project)

　　Tim Burners-Lee (Creator of the World Wide Web)

　　Linus Torvalds (Creator of Linux)

　　Tsutomu Shimomura (The man that caught Kevin Mitnick)

　　And if you want to hear more from the founder of a cybersecurity company herself, check out this podcast featuring Rachel Tobac.

　　Batman | Credit: Alphacoders.com

　　DCs’ Dark Knight and grey hat hackers have a lot in common 🦇. They both want to stand up for the right thing but use rather unconventional methods to do so.

　　Grey hat hackers are the balance between white hats and black hats. In contrast to white hats, they do not ask for permission to hack systems but do not perform any other illegal activities like black hat hackers.

　　Grey hats have quite a controversial history. This makes them hard to really classify, especially if their moral compass goes a little haywire down the line or what they did seems more black hat-ish than white hat-ish. Some even end up in jail for what they do.

　　But there are some that rise to be the heroes of the people and the enemy of the government and big organizations.

　　Some (in)famous examples of grey hat hackers are:

　　Anonymous (World famous hacktivist group)

　　HD Moore (Creator of Metasploit)

　　Adrian Lamo (aka the homeless hacker)

　　Khalil Shreateh (Hacked the facebook account of Mark Zuckerburg 🤣)

　　The Joker | Credit: Wallpapersden.com

　　Time to introduce the harmful lot 🃏. The Joker and Black Hats are like peas in a pod. They perform illegal activities for financial gain, the challenge, or simply for the fun of it.

　　They look for computers that are vulnerable over the internet, exploit them, and use them to whatever advantage they can.

　　Black Hats use techniques for getting into systems just like white hats. However, they don’t use their defensive skills – rather, they up their game on the attack by doing things such as:

　　Installing backdoors

　　Maintaining access to compromised systems

　　Performing privilege escalation

　　Downloading private/sensitive/intellectual data

　　Installing malware such as ransomware

　　Creating phishing emails and links

　　Examples of infamous black hats include:

　　Kevin Mitnick (Most wanted cybercriminal in U.S history)

　　Julian Assange aka Mendax (Creator of Wikileaks)

　　Hamza Bendelladj aka Bx1 (Latter owner of the ZeuS Banking Malware)

　　Kevin Poulsen (Dark Dante)

　　Robert Tappan Morris (Creator of the morris worm)

　　Mitnick, Poulsen, and Morris were criminally charged, served their sentences, and are good guys now. Mitnick founded a cybersecurity company. Poulsen created SecureDrop. And Morris became a professor at MIT (Don’t you just love a happy ending? 🤧).

　　Ms Marvel | Credit: Wallpapercave.com

　　Ms Marvel and Green hats are a match made in heaven 🌟. They are both young, enthusiastic, inexperienced and have the tendency to take risks and learn from their mistakes. Green hats are hackers that are new to the industry but are willing to learn to become great hackers.

　　Because of the availability and easy of use of hacking tools these days, it's pretty easy for a green hat to end up in trouble as they may not fully understand the full workings of the tool or target. But, they learn from their errors to gather experience.

　　Green hats may upgrade to White, Grey, or Black Hat hackers as they continue to move up the ranks.

　　John Wick | Credit: Wallpaperswide.com

　　Okay, I know. John Wick isn’t a part of either DC or Marvel but Dynamite Comics’ greatest hitman is a favourite of any fan 🐶.

　　Mr Wick and Blue hat hackers share the same ideology: Revenge. You kill John Wicks dog, he’ll come after you. You bully or threaten a blue hat, they will also come after you, except it's your digital life on the gallows.

　　But due to what I can only guess to be cultural differences, a blue hat could also mean an external security professional brought in to test software for vulnerabilities prior to its release.

　　The Punisher | Credit: Wallpaperflare.com

　　I think the character says it all ☠. The Punisher is a ruthless anti-hero that stands up for what is right but is never ever (and I mean ever 😬) going to give criminals second chances.

　　Red hats are the same. They target cybercriminals and damage whatever they can to disable criminal activities, permanently.

　　Red hats are hackers no one wants to mess with, not even a black hat. Other hackers usually attack Microsoft Windows computers but these hackers, they hack Linux computers.

　　They have no regrets, don’t think twice, and make black hats pay rather severely for their crimes by taking justice into their hands. They do this by destroying all data and backups of their target, and usually render the system useless.

　　And on that terrifying note, we have come to the end of this article. I hope you enjoyed it. And as I always say, Happy hacking! 🙃

What's the Difference Between Black-Hat and White-Hat Hackers？ ♂

　　Getting hacked isn't just a concern for corporations and businesses. As an average internet user, hacking affects you too.

　　In order to keep yourself safe online, you need to understand what you're protecting yourself against, and it's not just viruses. So what are the different types of hackers? And what motivates these cybercriminals?

　　In simple words, hacking is when someone accesses data or files without their owner's permission. And while hackers have the stereotypical image of a mysterious person in a dark room, typing zeros and ones on a black screen, that’s rarely the case.

　　Hacking can simply be someone guessing your password and logging into your accounts without your knowledge. It’s also considered hacking if they access your account or device because you forgot to log out, as you didn't give them permission.

　　As more people depend on online accounts and digital devices to store sensitive data, understanding the types of risks is key to staying safe. Hackers are categorized by their motivation and intention. These motivations range from financial gain to ideological reasons and sometimes just fun and passing time.

　　But instead of ending up with countless categories depending on individual cases, hacking is mainly divided into three types: black-, gray-, and white-hat hacking.

　　You can easily identify black-hat hackers for their malicious intent.

　　A black-hat hacker is after personal gain at the expense of others. They may be directly stealing money from companies or copying user data, breaching user privacy, and harming a business’s reputation.

　　However, the goal isn’t always getting money or data. Sometimes, their motive is ideological.

　　They attack because someone doesn't have the same beliefs as them.

　　Note that black-hat hackers don’t always target companies and businesses, but individuals as well. Notable examples of black-hat hacking aimed at individuals are fake customer support call centers and phishing emails.

　　Those both rely heavily on social engineering, i.e. tricking you into giving sensitive information away such as your social security number and login credentials.

　　You might have heard of this term too, so what exactly is a gray-hat hacker? Gray-hat hackers operate in a gray area---hence the name.

　　While their actions often break the law, they typically have good intentions, which leaves them in a morally ambiguous area between public support and opposition.

　　In terms of hacking, gray-hat hackers often use similar methods to black-hat hackers to gain unauthorized access to classified data and private accounts.

　　Gray-hat hackers often leak data and information they believe should be public knowledge. They sometimes reveal evidence and information to criminalize a person, an institute, or a public figure, acting as a whistleblower.

　　While the majority of people aren't scared of gray-hat hackers, the fact that they resort to shady tactics and illegal methods to get what they want makes many believe that gray-hat hacking is a slippery slope towards black-hat hacking.

　　Also, instead of being bound by the law of their state or country, victims of gray-hat hackers are often at the mercy of the hacker’s moral compass.

　　White-hat hacking---also known as ethical hacking---is a legal type of hacking. It's mostly used by cybersecurity experts to test their networks and devices against black- and gray-hat hackers.

　　White-hat hackers don’t generally operate on their own. Instead, they're hired by a company or an individual to try and hack into their system, database, or device to locate weak points and vulnerabilities.

　　In this case, they’re working both within ethical and legal bounds, with their motivations mostly financial gain from companies they work with and strengthening cybersecurity measures.

　　In addition to making sure a company’s software and hardware are impenetrable, white-hat hackers often test the employees’ cybersecurity awareness by staging social engineering attacks to see which are effective and the percentage of employees that fall for them.

　　Now that most businesses have some form of online presence, the ethical hacking industry is worth close to $4 billion.

　　That makes ethical hacking an excellent career path for the cybersecurity enthusiast who wants to do good and play by the rules.

　　Since there’s no need to protect yourself from white-hat hackers, that leaves you with black- and gray-hat hackers to worry about. And while a business can hire cybersecurity professionals to handle their security, you still need to take matters into your own hands.

　　The number one way to avoid getting hacked by a professional or amateur hacker is using strong passwords. But that can be difficult the more login details you have to remember.

　　Using a trusted password manager means you only have to remember one strong password that safe-keeps all your usernames and passwords—you could randomly generate these to ensure maximum security.

　　Your digital footprint is the trail of information you leave behind every time you use the internet.

　　You might feel it’s unimportant and minuscule. But it could help hackers execute targeted social engineering attacks through phone calls or phishing emails.

　　Self-destruct buttons might feel like an unnecessary precaution. However, they generally mean having remote control of your devices and accounts.

　　They allow you to log out of your accounts or even delete a device’s data in case you lose it or it's stolen. That’s particularly important with your password manager, private files, emails, and financial information.

　　Compromised websites and software can invite hackers right into your device.

　　Avoid giving out private information or passwords on unsecured websites that don’t have a valid SSL certificate.

　　Never download untrustworthy files or software from unknown sources, such as unsolicited emails.

　　Keeping your data safe isn’t solely about strong passwords and installing the latest antivirus software. You need to physically protect your devices from theft and unauthorized access.

　　Make sure you never lend your laptop or smartphone to strangers unsupervised and avoid leaving them unattended.

　　In case someone manages to get a hold of your hardware, you need to keep them encrypted. This means using a passcode on your smartphone, for instance.

　　This includes major devices and storage units like USB sticks and external hard drives.

　　There’s always room to improve your security without abandoning all modern tech.

　　But since potential threats are always evolving, your best option is staying up-to-date on the latest attacks that target individual users and learning more about cybersecurity.