Hackers have become the main villains in the digital world. And for the right reasons. They make at least one cyberattack every 39 seconds, which affects thousands of innocent users. Despite constant improvements, cybersecurity can’t guarantee 100% effectiveness. This made the digital community revalue its strategic approach to the problem.
They say to keep friends close and enemies closer. So it has been decided to bring white hat hackers to the battlefield. By referring to a white hat hacker company like Kiss.Software, it becomes possible to find cutting-edge solutions to cybersecurity issues.
So what is a white hat hacker? How is it different from an actual hacker? Let’s answer these questions together.
Table of Contents
White Hat Hacker Defined
White hat hackers, also known as ethical hackers, are digital specialists who use hacking knowledge and skills to disclose security bugs in hardware and software. They try to identify the flaws and fix them before they are benefited by malicious hackers. Doing their research, they rely on reliable techniques only. Compared to black hat hackers, they act in compliance with the law.
Some white hat hackers started their careers as black hat hackers. Eventually, they changed their path for whatever reason. Many of them were caught and then offered cooperation as ethical hackers, which allowed them to escape from prison.
Types of White Hat Hacker Company
Computer knowledge and skills are required to solve cybersecurity problems. For many organizations, this side of work has become critical as all their data is put at risk. In this context, the situation with hackers is not so simple. While a white hat hacker company like Kiss.Software keeps its hacking activities beneficial, its opponents have totally different intentions.
Black hat hackers serve as the opposite of white hat hackers. Using their own personal or business gain, they exploit any vulnerabilities they find to cause harm to organizations. Gray hat hackers took the neutral position. To be more specific, a motivation force and an intention to break the law are two factors that determine the type of hacker.
White Hat vs. Gray Hat vs. Black Hat Hackers
What makes white, black, and gray hat hackers different? They all have different motivation sources when breaching computer networks. White hat hackers deal with cybersecurity flaws and build better security mechanisms. They are authorized to hack into the internal systems, do their research, and fix possible issues.
Gray hat hackers operate in a neutral area, being neither ethical nor malicious. Even if they don’t have criminal intentions, they still break into the organizational system without any authorization. When uncovering vulnerabilities, they report them rather than exploit them. They usually do it for financial rewards.
Black hat hackers aim to cause harm to organizations they hack into. Once they gain unauthorized access to computer systems, they start looking for weak spots and exploit those by inserting a virus or other type of malware. Organizations may end up with the whole system crashed or sensitive data leaked to third parties.
White Hat Techniques
White hat hackers are using the same techniques as black hat hackers. However, instead of causing harm to organizations, they strengthen their security statuses. Here are the most common techniques:
- Penetration testing – A penetration test works as a simulated cyberattack against a computer system that aims to find any vulnerabilities.
- Security scanning – Also known as vulnerability scanning, it uses tools to scan websites, web applications, and open-source systems for weaknesses.
- Social engineering – A wide range of malicious activities are used for the psychological manipulation of people into performing certain actions. An organization is tested through simulated attacks in order to educate users on quick-reaction strategies.
- Email phishing – Anti-phishing campaigns are developed to find potential vulnerabilities and teach infrastructure users to work with a phishing mechanism.
- DoS and DDoS attacks – These types of attacks are activated to organizations can optimize their response plans.
Conclusion
Despite the real efforts of white hats, black hackers manage to find new weaknesses to exploit. That’s why organizations have to build extra layers of security to protect themselves from all kinds of online threats. Having white hats with a broad spectrum of instruments becomes the only right way to stay ahead of black hackers.
