What Is Hacking?
Hacking is the act of gaining access to a system or network in ways that its designers did not intend. While hackers can be people of all ages and backgrounds, they are typically associated with criminal activities that range from stealing personal information or credit card numbers to launching distributed denial-of-service attacks against corporate and government systems.
Malicious hackers, known as black hats, use hacking tools to gain unauthorized access for financial gain or other motives. This can include stealing passwords or bank account details, holding information hostage, and even selling stolen information on the dark web. Hacking has also become a business, with cybercriminals offering turnkey hacking tools for sale on the dark web, enabling even those without much technical skill to attack computer systems (known as script kiddies).
In contrast to black hat hackers, white hats use their hacking skills for ethical purposes, such as security testing or penetration testing. There is also a third group of hackers, known as grey hats, who break the law but only to test or improve their target systems’ security.
Hacking’s roots go back to the 1950s, when students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were using ham radios and other electronic equipment to modify hardware and make it perform in ways that its makers did not intend. As the term evolved, it came to be used to describe tinkering with electronics for fun and mischief, and was later associated with the underground hacker culture of the 1980s, with a number of high profile hacks including the theft of proprietary software, phreaking, and hijacking computers to conduct Distributed Denial-of-Service attacks against businesses and government systems.