Hello Steemians, Steemstemers, Utopians and Newcomers :]

If you have been following my channel, you know that I usually do either stoner crypto, or stoner programming :P, however I recently got the idea to do a bit of an ethical hacking guide for my readers. I am fairly interested in this topic, and have been since I was a kid. I intend this guide to be fairly comprehensive, though to be honest with the advanced readers out there, we will be staring with some fairly "Script-Kiddie" material, but honestly, I don't really see anywhere else to start.

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For those of you interested in becoming a more proficient hacker, I strongly suggest that you do everything you can to learn programming, Including reading the other tutorials I have, and will be posting. This is going to become a little personal Disclaimer throughout the guides here:

This is an Ethical Hacking Guide. That being said, the majority of the things you will be learning in this guide, are not legal, and should not be used on any device, or network that you do not have written permission to test on. (From the owner)

Well then, now that we've covered our asses... lol I kid, seriously be careful, but but carrying on, I'd like to kick this series off with just some basic information about the different types of hackers in the world. For those of you who don't know, there are a few classifying terms that hackers are often referred to as, which can often describe the type of hacker, or even person that they are. These terms, as mentioned in the header, are Black-Hat, White-Hat, and Grey-hat.

Now before everyone gets all 'black and white' about this, lets remember that sometimes it is best to be versed in all worlds, as you never know the type of trouble you can end up in, living in this world. I personally associate with grey-hatters in general, though there are some days I feel like putting my Black Hat on... Conversely, I often wear my white hat with pride, as its a symbol you can trust, and depend on. Now lets get into some strict definitions.

Black Hats!

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Black hat hackers, are as you have probably guess, the most infamous kind. In my opinion, something not many people really want around, and really shouldn't be practiced other than for methods of self defense. Unfortunately much like crime, this is one of the most profitable types of hacking as well. Another downside, probably in relation to the last two points made, is that these hackers are also the most publicized, and can give a bad outlook to the entire subject.

Black Hat hackers are out for a profit. That may not be a monetary profit, but they are almost always looking to gain in some way. They will steal your credentials, infect your devices, essentially **** your day up. And to be honest, for the most part it doesn't even take that much skill.

They spend their days finding new and interesting ways to take advantage of knowledgeable, or unsuspecting users. I'm sure it must be obvious that I don't have much respect for these types of people, however, I must admit, there are many dark tactics, that can be used with a good purpose, and that is where we come into the term, a 'White Hat Hacker.

White Hats!

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White Hat hackers, are benevolent creatures, who spend their time on this planet using their knowledge to improve security, and to help others who have been hit with the poor fortune of meeting their counterpart, the black hat. As opposed to black hatters, I personally feel that this is a more challenging field, with many great contributors.

In a world with criminals, one needs a protector. This is where White-Hats come in. White-Hats are often employed by big corporations and the like, so as to defend them from would be attackers. This can be an exciting line of work, and rewarding as well. It can go so far as to save lives in many situations. Sometimes the information you will be protecting can be very valued.

Black-Hats, in fact have become so by the dozen, that big name companies like Facebook, Google, they all hold something called 'Bug Bounties', encouraging hackers to come forward with the vulnerabilities they find, rather than use them themselves, or even worse sometimes, to sell them. White hat hackers can make a decent living off of these bounties alone.

Grey Hats!

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Grey Hats. What to say about grey hats. They are fickle beasts, that's a certainty. Grey hat's can be useful. They like white-hats spend their time participating in bug bounties to earn spare cash, investigating new services and servers, looking for exploits and the like. Grey hat hackers, are not malicious by nature. When they find a vulnerability, they will often either notify the general public, or go directly to the owner of said service with information regarding the issue.

On the same hand, grey hat hackers are well verses in 'the dark arts' haha, and due to this, they are not to be taken lightly. Often times, they like black hatters, they have intent to gain for themselves. When a black hat finds a vuln, he might take over the system, install ransomware, and even some mining software to top it off. A white hat would most definitely tell the systems owner. However, a grey hat, might do something I find much more appealing.

In this situation, a grey hat may go so far as to say install a backdoor for his own personal use, all the while helping the owner of the system keep others out more efficiently. They may instead steal all valuable data from the server prior to notification of the exploit, and then sell that data on the darkweb for a profit.

In the end, it all comes down to what type of person you want to be. I personally side myself with the white-hat, grey-hat side of things, though there is no wrong here, providing you aren't hurting anybody. We are all just here to learn:)

I hope this has been educational to you, and I promise very soon we will getting into some fairly hardcore **** so stay tuned :)

Happy Hunting,
Cerulean