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ST SHAMIM 16 Apr 2022 (10 months ago) Dhaka, Dhamrai, Kalampur , Bangladesh

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If you watch the news and keep up with technology, you know what a hacker is, but you may not realize that hackers fall into different categories known as black hat, white hat, and gray hat. The terms derive from color coding schemes found in 1950s Westerns, where bad guys wore black hats and good guys wore white or other light colors.

Black hat hackers are criminals who break into computer networks with malicious intent. They can also release malware that destroys files, hijacks computers, or steals passwords, credit card numbers, and other personal information.

While hacking can become a major intelligence-gathering tool for governments, it’s more common for black hats to work alone or with organized crime organizations for easy money. An example is the WannaCry ransomware released in May 2017. Within the first two weeks of its release, it infected nearly 400,000 computers in 150 countries. Fortunately, security experts released decryption tools within days of WannaCry’s appearance, and their rapid response limited ransom payments to about $120,000 – a little more than 1 percent of the potential extortion.

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What is a black-hat hacker?

If you watch the news and keep up with technology, you know what a hacker is, but you may not realize that hackers fall into different categories known as black hat, white hat, and gray hat. The terms derive from color coding schemes found in 1950s Westerns, where bad guys wore black hats and good guys wore white or other light colors.

Black hat hackers are criminals who break into computer networks with malicious intent. They can also release malware that destroys files, hijacks computers, or steals passwords, credit card numbers, and other personal information.

While hacking can become a major intelligence-gathering tool for governments, it’s more common for black hats to work alone or with organized crime organizations for easy money. An example is the WannaCry ransomware released in May 2017. Within the first two weeks of its release, it infected nearly 400,000 computers in 150 countries. Fortunately, security experts released decryption tools within days of WannaCry’s appearance, and their rapid response limited ransom payments to about $120,000 – a little more than 1 percent of the potential extortion.

Hacking is a business

Many black hat hackers use hacker tools purchased as new “script kiddies” to exploit security flaws. Some were trained to hack by bosses eager to make a quick buck. The upper echelon of black hat tends to be skilled hackers working for sophisticated criminal organizations that sometimes provide collaboration tools for their employees and offer service contracts to customers similar to legitimate businesses. Black hat malware kits sold on the dark web (the part of the Internet intentionally hidden from search engines) sometimes even include warranties and customer service.

Not surprisingly, black hat hackers often specialize in phishing or operating remote access tools. Many get their “jobs” through forums and other connections on the dark web. Some develop and sell malicious software themselves, but others prefer to operate through franchise or leasing arrangements, similar to the legitimate business world.

Distributing malicious software isn’t difficult, in part because hacking operates like big business today Organizations boast partners, resellers, vendors and affiliates, and they buy and sell malware licenses to other criminal organizations for use in new territories or markets.

Some black hat firms even have call centers. An example of how call centers are used is a hacker involved in phone scams claiming to work for Microsoft who calls to resolve a problem. In these scams, hackers try to convince potential victims to allow remote access to their computers or download software. When the victim accesses or downloads the recommended software, it allows criminals to collect passwords and banking information or secretly take over the computer and use it to launch attacks on others. To add insult to injury, the victim is usually charged an additional fee for this “help”.
Many hacks are quick and automated and do not involve human interaction. In this case, attack bots roam the Internet to find vulnerable computers to infiltrate. In one test, a group of computers hosted by the BBC online were attacked in 71 minutes. In the same experiment, email accounts for fake employees were attracted to phishing attacks 21 hours after they were established Of these attacks, 85 percent included malware attachments and the remainder contained links to compromised websites.

Black hats are worldwide

The problem of black hat hacking is global, which makes it extremely difficult to stop. For example, the Microsoft phone scam led to four arrests in the UK, but the calls actually originated in India. That means the larger enterprise remains intact.

The challenge for law enforcement is that hackers often leave little evidence, use the computers of unsuspecting victims, and cross multiple jurisdictions. While authorities sometimes succeed in shutting down a hacking site in one country, the same operation can have multiple nodes in many countries, allowing the group to operate 24/7.

The best protection is to be proactive by keeping your firewall turned on, updating and running reputable antivirus software and antispyware applications, and installing all operating system updates immediately. Additionally, to reduce exposure to hackers, do not download anything from unknown sources and do not disconnect your computer from the Internet or turn it off when you are not using it.