While talking about the ethics of hackers, the term hacker often has a negative connotation.

In reality, a hacker is an extremely competent person in the IT sector who exploits his knowledge, skills and his own curiosity for helping others in order to discover the vulnerabilities of a system.

The main objective of a hacker is to make the system more secure.

There are three types of hackers.

The good and fair ethical hacker, the bad one we imagine in black hat, the one we always see hooded and the hybrid one who contributes with his own piece of the project to a very complex system. We can call the former “ethical hacker”.

The positive connotation of ethical hacking is based on sharing, opening, decentralization and free access to all tools so that the community would be able to change and improve the world.

On the other hand, the hacker with the black hat is the one who exploits their own knowledge to harm others.

Clearly, the behaviour of the bad hacker is prosecutable according to the law.

Whilst the good hackers look for the vulnerabilities of a system in order to improve it and make it safer for all the world, the bad actors aim at exploiting the vulnerabilities in order to selfishly obtain any form of value.

In a broader sense, bad hacking equals harm and destruction whilst good hacking requires the ethical hacker to promote knowledge sharing, build knowledge and contribute to what each member has already shared before.

A bad actor is more prone to focus on himself, ethical hacking serves the community and contributes to the world of cybersecurity and IT thrive.

Bad actors are usually born alone, ethical hackers prosper together.

Nowadays, it is easy to understand if companies and organizations are doing things well on a purely economic side, whilst it is tricky to understand if their approach to value creation is ethical.

Hacktivism is a result of ethical hacking, which represents a concrete movement against those organizations, communities and individuals who do not act for the sake of the planet, the society, the progress, etc.

Hacktivists have claimed various cyberattacks against big corporations to shed light on social injustice or act in the name of ideology.

The information contained in this article is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute professional advice and is not guaranteed to be accurate, complete, reliable, current or error-free.

The information contained in this article is provided by White Blue Ocean, part of CRIF Group, a global company specializing in credit & business information systems, analytics, outsourcing and processing services, as well as advanced digital solutions for business development and open banking.