Types of Hackers

Hackers are not necessarily cyberterrorists. The term hacker is actually slang for cybercriminal. The media has come to use the term hacker in a negative way. A hacker is someone who constantly works on systems, tweaks them, and tries to exploit them for the benefit of higher knowledge and repair. The normal hacker is mainly a network and systems geek. You could say that all who were involved with this book are hackers in the purest sense of the word. You, the reader, could quite easily be called a hacker-hopefully a good hacker.

Bad hackers are those who learn tremendous amounts of information about systems and how to exploit them with tools already made or with tools they make themselves. The difference between the two types of hacker is what they actually do with their knowledge. Someone who is highly malicious, with an intention to do bad things (such as take down Yahoo! and cost the business a great deal of revenue) for any reason is not the hacker you want to be affiliated with. Even though that person is obviously very knowledgeable about systems and networks, their malicious side causes them to squander all their knowledge on pranks, mischief, and creating problems for people. These hackers simply want to crack someone else's system or otherwise use their expert programming or system and networking knowledge to cause disruption and harm.

Hacker Jargon

Now that you know what the term hacker truly means, it is important to understand some of the different types of hackers:

• Cracker   A cracker is another name for a bad hacker. A cracker is a malicious person out to do harm or cause problems. Most security folk prefer the word cracker to hacker when referring to such people.

• Attacker   An attacker is another name for a hacker with bad intentions.

• Script Kiddie   A script kiddie is a malicious person who does not possess in-depth system skills. Script kiddies are knowledgeable to an extent, but they are not experienced enough to build their own hacking tools. Script kiddies do not have a deep understanding of the systems they are trying to exploit, but they are able to obtain tools that superior hackers have built. They use downloadable tools and scripts from the Internet and are very good at creating problems with them.

• Click Kiddie   A click kiddie is a step below the script kiddie. Click kiddies do not have a deep knowledge of systems, but are able to use simple malicious tools that they can operate with a mouse pointer (hence the term click kiddie).

• Black Hat   A black hat is simply another name for a malicious hacker, cracker, or attacker-in other words, a bad guy.

• White Hat   A white hat is a security analyst who learns the techniques of crackers to better protect their own systems. A security analyst for a company is considered a white hat hacker.

• Gray Hat   A gray hat falls between the white hat and the black hat. The black hat finds a vulnerability and exploits it with malicious intent. A white hat finds an exploit and notifies vendors of the problem. A gray hat finds the exploit and does not exploit it themselves, but unlike the white hat that takes the problem to the vendor, the gray hat makes the exploit publicly known so others can exploit it.

Test Day Tip 

You do not need to worry too much about these terms for the exam. We have included them here so that you understand the lingo. You can learn more about white-hat hacking at www.whitehats.com.

Unfortunately, the terminology can become even more distorted. There are other terms used, such as phreakers. It is important to be aware of the jargon because it will become the language in all the meetings, conferences, and day-to-day work-related events the security administrator participates in.

You might be asking, "If this material is not on the exam, why is it in this book?" The reasons it is so important are:

• Each term is used on the test within the scenarios. You will not have to repeat verbatim the difference between a good hacker and a bad hacker, but the term hacker is used, and you need to understand it.

• Once you are done studying for and have taken (and passed) the exam, you will have become an SSCP. This will enable you to obtain a position in which "walking the walk" and "talking the talk" are everyday expectations for you.