Most Common Types of Hacker: Protection Tips

Last Updated on 1 year by Touhid

Nowadays, you are not safe in this digital world. Your sensitive information and assets may be compromised or hacked by hackers at any time. A hacker is an individual person who is an expert in information technology. In this post, we will explain all aspects related to hackers such as who is a hacker, different types of hacker, and how to protect from hackers.

Who is a Hacker?

A Hacker is a person who is skilled in computer programs and utilizes their technical knowledge to find and exploits weakness in computer systems to gain unauthorized access.

There are different ways a hacker can hack a system such as by installing malware, phishing emails, social engineering, Denial-of-service attacks, and man-in-the-middle Wi-Fi attacks.

Typically, hackers steal your sensitive information, destroy your data, and disrupt your services. In addition, there are some hackers called ethical hackers, who are trying to find out the vulnerabilities and make possible solutions rather than criminal activities.

Common Types of Hacker

There are different types of hackers in the cyber world such as white hat, black hat, and grey hat hacker. A hacker may steal information, damage or bring down computer systems and networks. However, a hacker can be anyone and they can be an individual or group.

Many organizations hire hackers as part of their employees. They use their technical skills to find vulnerabilities and weaknesses in the organization’s security system. This is done to find and fix the weaknesses and prevent cyber threats from breaking into the security system.

• Black Hat Hackers
• White Hat Hacker
• Grey Hat Hackers
• Red Hat Hackers
• Green Hat Hackers
• Script Kiddies Hackers
• Blue Hat Hackers

1. Black Hat Hackers

Black Hat hackers, also known as crackers, are those who attempt to find security vulnerabilities and gain unauthorized access to an application or network for malicious reasons.

This type of hacker is illegal because of its bad intent which includes stealing financial information, and login credentials, disrupting the systems, violating privacy, and shutting down the network system.

Black Hat hackers are experts in cyber hacking to break into a computer system without the system owner’s authorization. After getting access to a system, they can send phishing emails to others, install malware into your system, and sell financial and sensitive information on the Dark Web.

The term “black hat hacker” is derived from old Western movies, in which the good guys wore white hats, and the bad guys wore black hats.

2. White Hat Hacker

A white hat hacker is a hacker who is a security specialist and uses skills to break into a system for penetration testing and to strengthen the security of your system.

White Hat hackers are also known as Ethical Hackers. They never intend to harm a system, rather they try to find out security weaknesses and vulnerabilities in a computer or a network system.

In addition, this type of hacker is not illegal, and it is one of the most demanding jobs available in the IT industry. White hat hackers are paid employees or contractors working for companies as security specialists who attempt to find security holes via hacking.

Most White Hat hackers hold an academic degree in IT security and must be certified to pursue a career in hacking. Most of them have a popular certification the CEH (Certified Ethical Hacker) from the EC-Council.

Typically, white hat hackers do the following jobs:

• Find out the vulnerabilities of a system.
• Install the security system such as antivirus, SSL certificate, and Web application Firewall.
• Develop a cyber-security tool that can identify cyber threats.
• Uses penetration testing tools to ensure security.

It is noted that some renowned companies like Facebook, Microsoft, and Google also use white-hat hackers.

3. Grey Hat Hackers

Grey Hat hacker is someone who may violate ethical standards, but except for the malicious intent they exploit a security weakness in a computer system without the owner’s permission.

The primary goal of grey hat hackers is to improve system and network security. This type of hackers is still considered illegal because the hacker has not taken any permission from the system owners to attempt to filter their systems.

It is a combination of both black hat and white hat hackers. Their intent is to bring the weakness to the attention of the owners and get appreciation or a little gift from the owners.

4. Red Hat Hackers

Red Hat Hackers are hackers who take the necessary steps to stop the black hat hacker’s activities in cybercrime. This type of hacker is almost similar to white hat hackers. The key difference between red hat hackers and white hat hackers is their hacking intention.

Basically, White Hat hackers are Ethical Hackers who break into a system for penetration testing and strengthen the security of a system. Red hat hackers take the wrong initiative to protect a system from black hat hackers.

Red hat hackers use different types of attack tools and techniques to attack the bad hat hackers and infect malware within their systems.

The main aim of red hat hackers is to save the computer and cyber world from black hat hackers but using illegal steps.

5. Green Hat Hackers

It is another types of hackers in the world of cyber hacking. Green hat hackers are learning and working on hacking techniques in order to improve their technical skills to become better hackers.

Typically, they are “newbies” in the hacking domain and learning day by day. Actually, green hat hackers don’t have deep knowledge about hacking tactics, and they are not aware of cyber security.

Simply put, they are dangerous because they have no technical skills on how to fix a security problem of a system. They always gather knowledge from experienced hackers and practice on a life system.

6. Script Kiddies Hackers

Script kiddie hackers are less experienced young malicious hackers who have half a knowledge of the field of cyber hacking. They try to hack a system with a malicious script that has been taken from expert hackers. That’s why this type of hacker is called a Script kiddie hacker.

They aren’t not trying to improve their technical skills of hacking and they don’t know how to write a hacking script. This type of hacker isn’t a good programmer, and they use a script that has been developed by other cyber hackers. Script kiddie hackers are enjoyed as it is fun or a game for entertainment.

They try to get unauthorized access or hack a computer system, networks, or websites of an organization.

7. Blue Hat Hackers

Blue hat hackers or BlueHat are a type of hacker in the cyber world who works outside of the organization to scrutinize the possible security holes of an application. They are invited by companies in order to find out the security vulnerabilities of a new application before implementation.

Blue hat hackers use various hacking technics and inject malware into their enemies’ servers or networks to take individual revenge. They can destroy the enemies’ data, websites, and applications.

They can also gain unauthorized access to an email system and send phishing or inappropriate emails to their targets’ email addresses. This type of hackers is dangerous because their intention is to hack data and damage the reputation of their enemies.

Effect of Hacking on a Business

No doubt, cyber hackers are very strong in information technology. When and which attacking technique, they will use for hacking is unknown to us. Once they have gained access to your computer system, they can do anything.

Cyber attackers can damage your business data with reputation, so as a result, you will lose your clients, lose your sales, and lose your profit.

The attackers can damage your hardware and delete essential files of your business. So, this can impact your business to continue, and it is costly and time-consuming to restore your business.

Cyber hackers can install malware on your computer system in order to gain unauthorized access or gather sensitive information. The information can be sent to cyber criminals to generate profit.

However, there are some benefits of hacking such as keeping your business data secured and protected from cyber attackers. So as a business owner, you will take the necessary action to fix the vulnerabilities of your system by ethical hackers.

Tips to Protect From Different Types of Hackers

Hacking incidents are increasing day by day in the 21st century. Even you don’t know how your bad practices invite a hacker to access your computer system. In this section, we will put the best tips on how to protect from different types of hacker.

1. Use Strong Password

Use strong passwords in order to protect yourself from hackers. If you use simple and easy passwords such as 13456, test123, admin123, employee ID, or phone number then hackers can easily hack your password and access your system.

So, create a strong password use combining letters, numbers, and special characters to protect from hackers and change your password on a regular basis.

2. Keep Software Update

An old version of software may have security holes or weaknesses so, hackers can take advantage to get access to your system. It is recommended that when a new version of application software and OS is released, you should update the application software and operating system immediately.

Here are the helpful tips to check your running operating system is up to date on Windows.

Tips

• Go to Start > Control panel > System and Security > Click on Windows Update.
• In the left pane, click Check for updates, and then wait while Windows looks for the latest updates for your computer.
• If an update is found, click Install updates.

3. Install Antivirus Software

We know that there are different types of hacker in the cyber world. Some hackers may install virus or malware into your system to get unauthorized access. Typically, antivirus software is a program that helps to protect your devices from viruses, worms, Trojan horses, and malwares.

Basically, it scans every file which stores in your system and the files which comes through the internet into your computer or laptop or phone.

So, you should use a professional anti-virus software to remove virus and malware. Here we have mentioned some best professional anti-virus software, which you can install.

• Norton
• Bitdefender
• Kaspersky
• Panda
• ESET
• Avast
• AVG

4. Data encryption

Data Encryption is a security technique in which data is encoded in a secured way that only authorized user can access the data. By the by, if your data is hacked by hackers and your data is encrypted by strong encryption method then hackers can’t decrypt/access your data.

The data encryption technique will protect your sensitive data such as login credentials, financial data, and personal information by encoding into cipher text.

5. Add SSL certificate

SSL or Secure Sockets Layer is a standard safety protocol which guarantees that your website or online application is secure.

SSL makes a secure connection between your application and internet browser. It ensuring that all data passed between a server and browser remains encrypted and secured from hackers.

So, you should purchase and add a SSL certificate for your website or application from a trustworthy service provider. Here, we have mentioned some top and best reliable SSL certificate provides.

• Symantec
• VeriSign
• GeoTrust
• Comodo
• GoDaddy

Tips

If your website is secured by SSL certificate then a padlock will display on address bar and shows the URL as HTTPS instead of HTTP.

• Such as https://cyberthreatportal.com/instead of https://cyberthreatportal.com/

6. Use Web Application Firewall

A web application firewall or WAF is an application based cyber safety tool which is designed to secure your websites and applications by filtering, monitoring and blocking HTTP malicious traffic.

You should use a web application firewall in order to secure your application from hackers and malicious attacks.

Here is the list of some commercially used best Web Application Firewalls.

• Fortinet FortiWeb
• Citrix NetScaler AppFirewall
• F5 Advanced WAF
• Radware AppWall
• Symantec WAF
• Barracuda WAF
• Imperva WAF
• Sophos XG Firewall
• SonicWall NSa

7. Protect SQL Injection Attacks

It is one of the common website hacking techniques which used by most types of hacker to control a website database to hack or damage sensitive information.

In SQL injection technique, the hackers places the malicious code in SQL query, via web page input. SQL injection happens when a website fails to appropriately sanitize the SQL query, so the hacker can introduce their own malicious SQL statements to access the database.

You can apply the following prevention technique to protect from SQL injection attacks.

• Use of Prepared Statements.
• Use a Web Application Firewall.
• Updating your system.
• Validating user input.
• Limiting privileges.
• Use Stored Procedures.

8. Secure Web Server

You have to secure your web server in order to protect from hackers. The website and application source codes and related files/ services are hosted on web server so, if hackers can get access your web server then they can access your all data.

You can secure your webserver by using the following tips.

• Keep up to date server Operating System.
• Enable the security feature of  Web Server.
• Remove unnecessary services.
• Disable remote access.
• Install and monitor web application firewall.
• Install SSL certificate.
• Ensure dedicated servers for website.
• Keep separate user logins.

Conclusion

Finally, hackers are very smart about new technology, and they change their attacking techniques to get unauthorized access into your system. In this post, we have discussed different types of hacker with some protection tips. We hope that this article will be helpful for you to learn about hackers and their activities in the cyber world.