Black hat hacker

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Black Hat Hackers are a type of hackers who illegally access computer systems, without the owner's consent, in order to abuse and/or vandalize the system. While white hat hackers attempt to hack for the greater good black hat hackers are primarily focused on committing criminal activities such as identity theft, fraud, and vandalism.[1]

The security industry refers to black hat hackers as also “crackers”. These crackers discover and exploit system vulnerabilities. Their actions are motivated by personal agendas and may modify the system to secure control over the network.[2]

These hackers can vary from small time amateurs who release computer viruses to groups of hackers such as Anonymous that coordinate attacks against larger groups and corporations. They can employ attacks that range from stealing passwords and logins using keystroke loggers to denial of service attacks that can disable websites to even more malicious endeavors such as hacking corporations and stealing credit card numbers.[3]

BusinessInsider.com has produced an infographic that displays some of the world's biggest data breaches in recent years. Hackers have caused extensive and costly damage to many organizations and corporations like Ebay, Target, Adobe, Sony PSN, the US Military and the Virginia Dept. of Health, to name a few. Some of these data breaches were self-inflicted and others were the result of black hat hackers looking for monetary gains or social disruption.[4]

References:

  1. Baskerville, R. (2007). Hacker Wars: Cyber Warfare Previews. E-Collaboration in Modern Organizations: Initiating and Managing Distributed Projects: Initiating and Managing Distributed Projects, 162. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Zd3O1COhMMkC&oi=fnd&pg=PT179&dq=%22black+hat+hacker%22+define&ots=bdIsNpopO7&sig=P0uwPSPOEjkT_K1udN8HZNAD9qw#v=onepage&q&f=false
  2. Marakas, B. (2011). Management Information Systems, pp. 536-537. . ISBN 978-0-07-752217-9.
  3. https://www.techopedia.com/definition/26342/black-hat-hacker
  4. http://www.businessinsider.com/data-breaches-infographic-2014-12