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What do they mean by Black Hat, White Hat, and Grey Hat hackers? BTW, there are more colors!
The following examples are related to computers and or programming…
In simple terms, the Black Hat is an unethical hacker, someone who is not supposed to be hacking the device in question, and in most cases is illegal to do so! This individual is trying to get something for nothing, cause harm, prove something, or steal something such as information, all with malicious intent.
The White Hat is a hacker who is trying to break, break into, or take information from a device or program with the intention of finding vulnerabilities. After finding issues, then the next step is to report these so a fix or hardening can take place to make it more resilient, or simply not worth hacking. In almost every case, the White Hat hacker is compensated by the device/program owner, and another popular term for this is Penetration Testing, or Pen Testing. I will have another article on this later…
A Grey Hat is a hacker somewhat in between the Black/White examples above, who may sometimes violate laws or ethical standards, but usually does so without malicious intent. Unlike Black Hat hackers, they attempt to violate standards and principles but without intending to do harm or gain financially. Their actions are typically carried out for the common good, and may exploit a vulnerability to raise awareness that it exists, but unlike White Hat hackers, they do so publicly. This alerts malicious actors to the existence of the vulnerability.
Hacking is not just for computers; we hack all sorts of items to identify and exploit the weakness within. You can hack a toaster for example — let us say you want a toaster that only toasts the bread on one side. You could simply re-wire the heating elements to bypass the electricity and cook on one side only; this is an example of hacking as well…
Here is a great link that explains all (6) Hat Colors if you are interested…