Have you ever thought about hacking into someone’s account? If you have then you could get arrested for non-ethical hacking. Hacking can be classified into two categories, ethical and non-ethical hacking. Since you did not ask the owner of the account for permission, you did non-ethical hacking which is illegal. If you are working for a company and have permission from the owner then you did ethical hacking which is legal.
Ethical Hacking
Ethical hacking, what is it? Ethical hacking is when you work for someone and have their permission to hack into their account. Ethical hacking’s goal is to find problems in the system and keeping it safe from the hackers. Ethical hackers are white hat hackers and the term “white hat” came from old movies where heroes used to wear white hat. Since ethical hackers are good hackers they are called “white hat hackers”. Marc Maiffret is one of the best white hat hacker, he is known for being the early discoverer in Microsoft research and naming Code Red.
Techniques of Hacking:
1: Phishing:
Phishing is when hackers send fraud emails asking you for your bank details, personal information etc. They want you to click on the link and put your personal info, and that way they can hack into your accounts and ask you to pay them for the accounts back. Ethical hackers check those emails and keep you safe from getting hacked.
2: Sniffing:
Sniffing is when a hacker is monitoring someone on a network. Ethical hackers use this method to gain awareness on a network. They also use this method to monitor the things that are happening on the network.
-source: https://cmitsolutions.com/tribeca-ny-1166/blog/tools-and-techniques-of-ethical-hacking/
Non-Ethical Hacking
What is Non-Ethical Hacking? Non-Ethical Hacking is when someone is hacking into other people’s account to get their personal data. Non-Ethical Hacking is strictly illegal in the US. Non ethical hacking involves stealing personal information or damaging other computers. Non ethical hackers are known as “Black Hat hackers”. The term “black hat” also came from the old movies where bad guys wore black hats. Hackers enter the computers with the intention to hack the system and damage the computers. One of the most wanted hacker is Kevin Mtinick (1963-2023). Mitnick was arrested in 1995 and sentenced for 5 years in prison, he hacked Digital Equipment Corporation and Pacific Bell. After hacking these companies Kevin Mitnick transitioned to cybersecurity luminary and joined KnowBe4, Inc as a hacking officer in 2011.
-sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Mitnick
What happens if you get caught doing non-ethical hacking?
1: Criminal Charges
You can face criminal charges if you do non-ethical hacking because that is a serious crime. You have to pay up to $5,000 or a prison sentence of one to five years.
2: Reputation Damage:
Once you get caught with illegal hacking then you might be on the news and other people will stop believing you. Your reputation will be damaged and no one will hire you in their company.
-sources:
Grey Hat Hackers
Other than white and black hat hackers there are grey hat hackers. They look for faults in the systems without asking for the owners permission. If they found any issues in the systems they tell the owner and they charge the owners for fixing the problems. Grey hat hackers do good for companies by hacking their websites and invading their network without the company’s permission. Grey hat hackers might sometimes violate the laws but their intentions are not the same as the black hat hackers.
Grey hat hackers violate the CFAA (Computer Fraud and Abuse Act) which is a law that imposes criminal penalties who access a computer without permission. Grey hat hacking is still illegal because they do not have any permissions from the owners for hacking into their systems. One of the biggest grey hat hacker groups are Anonymous hacker group. People call them the digital world Robin Hood, because they want to do good in the digital world but without permission from anyone.
-source:
https://usa.kaspersky.com/resource-center/definitions/hacker-hat-types
Conclusion
In conclusion, there are three types of hackers in the world, white hat, black hat, and grey hat. They all have different paths of hacking, some choose to do good with permission, some choose to do bad without permission. There are also hackers who want to do good but they don’t want permission from anyone.