A black hat hacker is a person who compromises the security of a computer system without permission from an authorized party, typically with malicious intent. The term white hat is used for a person who is ethically opposed to the abuse of computer systems, but is frequently no less skilled. The term cracker was coined by Richard Stallman to provide an alternative to using the existing word hacker for this meaning.[1] The somewhat similar activity of defeating copy prevention devices in software which may or may not be legal in a country’s laws is actually software cracking.
Terminology
Use of the term “cracker” is mostly limited (as is “black hat”) to some areas of the computer and security field and even there, it is considered controversial. Until the 1980s, all people with a high level of skills at computing were known as “hackers”. A group that calls themselves hackers refers to “a group that consists of skilled computer enthusiasts”. The other, and currently more common usage, refers to those who attempt to gain unauthorized access to computer systems. Over time, the distinction between those perceived to use such skills with social responsibility and those who used them maliciously or criminally, became perceived as an important divide. Many members of the first group attempt to convince people that intruders should be called crackers rather than hackers, but the common usage remains ingrained. The former became known as “hackers” or (within the computer security industry) as white hats, and the latter as “crackers” or “black hats”. The general public tends to use the term “hackers” for both types, a source of some conflict when the word is perceived to be used incorrectly; for example Linux has been criticised as “written by hackers”. In computer jargon the meaning of “hacker” can be much broader.
Usually, a black hat Hacker is a person who uses their knowledge of vulnerabilities and exploits for private gain, rather than revealing them either to the general public or the manufacturer for correction. Many black hat hacker hack networks and web pages solely for financial gain. Black hat hacker may seek to expand holes in systems; any attempts made to patch software are generally done to prevent others from also compromising a system they have already obtained secure control over. A black hat hacker may write their own zero-day exploits (private software that exploits security vulnerabilities; 0-day exploits have not been distributed to the public). In the most extreme cases, black hat Hacker may work to cause damage maliciously, and/or make threats to do so as extortion.
Methods
Techniques for breaking into systems can involve advanced programming skills and social engineering, but more commonly will simply be the use of semi-automatic software. Common software weaknesses exploited include buffer overflow, integer overflow, memory corruption, format string attacks, race conditions, cross-site scripting, cross-site request forgery, code injection and SQL injection bugs
