Characteristics of Typical Hackers
Describe the characteristics of a typical hacker. Then provide descriptions of six typical types of hackers, based on psychological characteristics.
Characteristics of Typical Hackers
A hacker has been basically defined as an individual who uses a computer system to gain unauthorized access to another system in order to gain data or to make the other system unavailable. Each of the hackers has a specific goal which categorizes them into different types dependent on the goals. A typical hacker has been found to be making under $20000from programs while the skilled hacker could even make up to $350000.
High intelligence, consuming curiosity and having facilities with intellectual abstractions are the most typical personality characteristics of hackers (AL-alwi, n.d.). A hacker is always in pursuit of learning new things. They acknowledge being rusty and having no idea about something hence will work hard to ensure they learn about it. To this effect, they become individuals who are very intelligent on different issues and actually teach others while learning other new things. This beats the stereotype of hackers being intellectually narrow.
A hacker has an obsessive curiosity to learn about the thought patterns of particular systems (Gary, 2017). The hacker is not only curious about the job he or she is handling. They have a curiosity that intrigues them constantly on distinct and diverse systems. They try to make things work without following the original ways they were intended to follow. Hackers work in facilities with intellectual abstractions because they hate normal things. The hacker will ensure that they have complex and programmed systems in their vicinity to try to explore their imaginations.
A hacker’s other characteristic is their ability to mentally capture, retain and recall large amounts of meaningless detail (AL-alwi, n.d.). This trait is useful in their extreme activities that entail even in the abnormal places. Therefore, the hacker ensures they build this ability which becomes very essential when seeking answers to the different ventures. The main objective is to give the ventures more context and meaning. Considering the nature of their activities, most of the hackers are introverted individuals. These people prefer being in solitude most of the time as they do their research. This even makes them get a better understanding of human nature as they view others as an outside element to the system.
Another stereotype norm that goes around is that most hackers are weakly motivated by conventional rewards such as money or approvals from society (Gary, 2017). There are a few individuals who join hacking for the money purposes. However, some of them take the hacking activities very seriously and develop it to engage in professional and legal hacking jobs. These hacking jobs include Information Security Analyst, Security Analyst and Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) among others. Most of the hackers want to be challenged and will be attracted to challenges. However, there are no physical distinguishing characteristics of a hacker as it could easily be a neighbor, co-worker or a young child.
Typical types of hackers based on Psychological Characteristics.
Based on the psychological characteristics of typical hackers described above, there are six types of typical hackers. They include:
1. The Pioneer Hacker: These are individuals who are fascinated by the constant changing technology in the telecommunications sector. The pioneers will explore a system with no objective in mind or even knowing what they are looking for. They easily go into the systems and use whatever they find for their own benefits. With the ability to hold even the non-essential details, the pioneers are more likely to know the useful information. It has been found that most of the hard-core criminals are found to be part of this group. The pioneer could be considered the black hat hacker whose main objective is financial gain (BrideWell Consulting, 2018). They are a great risk to business owners and bank account owners since their details are at the mercy of these individuals.
2. Scamps: these are individuals whose activities are based on just having fun. Their intentions do not lie near to being harmful. They also do not want to aid people. The main objective is personal enjoyment. They hold the notion that nothing is black or white including hacking. They are also called the grey hat hackers who will have the skills of both the black and white hat hacker (BrideWell Consulting, 2018). The scamp will play with the different systems and enjoy the difficulties in finding gaps and destroying the protections. After they are done hacking, their personal enjoyment is fulfilled hence move on to another challenge. Most of the hackers known are actually grey hat hackers.
3. The explorer whose hacking activities are motivated by the delight they achieve from the discoveries they get after breaking into new computer systems (Bosworth, Kabay, & Whyne, 2014). They easily get to hack the systems that are in proximity with the hacker’s physical location. The farther away one is geographically, the safer/ secure they get from these kinds of hackers. When the hackers beat these geographically far systems, the excitement will be greater and the motivation increased to hack even further.
4. The game players whose enjoyment comes from defeating software or system copy protection. To achieve this goal, the hackers will seek illegal access to computer systems that have games to play. As they continue to enjoy the game playing, so does their hacking become a habit. Without knowing, this individual becomes a game player kind of hacker.
5. Vandal hacker who is a malicious hacker who will deliberately damage with no substantial gains for themselves. One of the commonly known vandals was the original 414 gang in Milwaukee who illegally entered the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Institute’s computers and erased all patient records. They easily cause chaos and disruption to the hacked sites that they could be considered the script kiddie. A script kiddie will have no interest in mundane or theft. Therefore, they won’t invest in developing their own software but download existing malware and attack. An IP address could easily be flooded with useless traffic before it collapses and no other user can actually use it (BrideWell Consulting, 2018).
6. Addicts hackers are nerds who are now obsessed with computer technology. These individuals mostly are addicted to illegal drugs. They will create hacker bulletin board systems which will post data on drugs together with computer aspects such as modems, password and vulnerable systems. As similar it is for one to fight drugs, an addict hacker finds it hard to fight their activity. An individual who becomes an addict hacker will constantly want to feed this urge in them to look into systems. These are individuals that cause a lot of chaos and disruptions intentionally and even unintentionally since some time, they do not realize the extreme extents they can go. It is easy for them to hack and leave systems very vulnerable leading the way open for other hackers to venture into the same systems looking for information that could help them achieve their own objectives.
References
AL-alwi, H. D. (n.d.). Hacker’s personality characteristics. progamusingbyhacker. Retrieved from https://sites.google.com/site/progamusingbyhacker/home/hacker-s-personality-characteristics
Bosworth, S., Kabay, M. E., & Whyne, E. (Eds.). (2014). Computer security handbook, set. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com
BrideWell Consulting. (2018, October 1). Different Types Of Hackers — And What They Mean For Your Business. Retrieved from https://www.bridewellconsulting.com/different-types-of-hackers-and-what-they-mean-for-your-business
Gary. (2017). 7 Qualities of Highly Effective Hackers. Retrieved from https://www.rafaybaloch.com/2017/06/7-qualities-of-highly-effective-hackers.html
