Who Are Cybercriminals?
The typical cybercriminals in the cyber world in the early days were youngsters or hobbyists. Their attacks were generally limited to pranks and vandalism. But now, cybercriminals have become very dangerous. The attackers are individuals or groups. They try to make use of the vulnerabilities for their mission. These criminals are interested in credit cards, product designs, and anything with some value. The type of cybercriminals are the following:
Amateurs
Amateurs are also called script kiddies. They have only some skills and want to be hackers. They lack any serious technical expertise and usually use existing tools to start attacks. Some are just curious, and others try to show their skills and cause damage. They are just using basic tools and usually can attack very weakly secured systems, but the results can be very destructive.
Hackers
The term hacker is first used in the early days of the 1960s. It describes a programmer or somebody who can hack computer code. Usually, they work secretly and create tools for hacking. They often break into computers or networks to gain access for various reasons. The goal of the break-in determines the categorization of these hackers as white, grey, or black hats. The figure below illustrates the type of hackers.
White Hat Hackers
These are ethical hackers who use their programming skills for good and legal processes. They break into networks or computers with the permission of the owners to find weaknesses in these systems and improve security aspects. White hat hackers use their skills to discover network vulnerabilities and report to developers and owners for fixing these issues before the vulnerabilities can cause damage.
Black Hat Hackers
The black hat attackers are people who take advantage of any vulnerability for illegal missions. Blackhat hackers are unethical hackers. These hackers compromise the network permission for their gain. They also attack a network for malicious.
Gray hat hackers
These hackers are between white and black hat attackers. The grey hat attackers may find the vulnerability and report it to the system’s owners to fix the problem. Some grey hat hackers publish the facts about the vulnerability on the Internet so that other attackers can exploit it.
Organized Hackers
These are cybercriminals’ organizations, including hacktivists, terrorists, and state-sponsored hackers. These criminals are generally groups of skilled criminals focused on control, power, and wealth.
Hacktivists
Hacktivists are cybercriminals who make political statements to raise awareness of different issues regarding their rights. Hacktivists also publish awkward information about their victims publicly.
State-sponsored
State-sponsored attackers collect intelligence or situate damage on behalf of their government. These attackers are very high and well-trained. Their attacks focus on particular goals that are helpful to their government. These attackers are usually members of their country’s armed forces.