Difference Between Hacker And Cracker – An Easy Overview (2021)

Introduction

1. Hackers vs Crackers Infographics
2. All about hackers
3. All about crackers
4. Difference between hacker and cracker

1) Hackers vs Crackers Infographics

Many of us think of hacking from a negative point of view. We term hackers as someone who poses a threat to our system and can takeout whatever information he or she wants from our systems. Hackers and Crackers are someone who has extensive knowledge of the systems, how they work, the programming, coding and everything else. Largely, people cannot find the difference between hacker and cracker and think of them as the same.

However, it is important to know the difference between the two. Hackers and crackers are different and work with different interests and objectives. The hackers can be simply termed as good people and crackers as the bad ones. Hackers protect the system from malicious attacks, whereas crackers are the one which attacks the system and pose as a threat.

2) All about hackers

Hackers are the good people who do hacking with a good purpose to obtain more knowledge of how things work. Hackers are also known as White Hats or saviour. They are the programmers or computer experts with adequate knowledge of programming and coding who find the loopholes present in a system and try to cover them and hence protect the system. The hackers try and remove the flaws in the system, making it more secure. They never work with the objective of harming the system or stealing and misusing the data.

The hackers know how a cracker would try to damage the website or data and hence focus on improving those aspects of the systems and hence eliminating all vulnerabilities that could harm the system. They are hired by companies and big corporations to find the defects in the network and security systems, if any, and remove them. For instance, various law enforcement agencies use hacking techniques to collect evidence on criminals and other malicious actors.

3) All about crackers

Now, as we have learnt of hackers, crackers are also hackers. Crackers also have the same knowledge of the systems, programming and coding as the hackers do. They also perform the same activities as hackers do. However, their objective is of breaking the system and network to gain unauthorized access. This is the main difference between hacker and cracker. The activity performed by crackers is illegal. They use their coding and programming knowledge to get personal and financial gains, steal data, destroy data or even delete crucial data.

Crackers are also known as Black Hats or the evildoers. Their activities are focused on gaining access to various programmes and software without paying for the same or proving their capacities. Various different types of crackers are wannabes and d00dzs amongst others. Crackers could also steal your bank details and transfer money from your bank account. The crackers have less knowledge of the system, yet their threat is imminent and cannot be overlooked.

4) Difference between hacker and cracker

Now it is very much clear that there are a lot of dissimilarities between hackers and crackers, and one should not use them interchangeably. The main difference between hackers and crackers can be observed through the following points:

• Hackers are people who use their knowledge for a good purpose and do not damage the data, whereas a cracker is someone who breaks into the system with a malicious purpose and damages data intentionally.

• Hackers possess advanced knowledge of computer systems and programming languages, while crackers might not necessarily be so skilled and well-versed with computing knowledge.

• The hackers work for an organization to improvise their network and solve any issues. Crackers are someone from whom the hacker protects the organization. Crackers work just because a system might be challenging or to get illegal gains.

• Hacking is ethical, while cracking is illegal and unethical.

• Hackers have ethical certificates, while the Crackers do not possess any certificates.

• Hackers continuously work towards making new tools rather than using the existing ones. The crackers, on the other hand, have inadequate computing knowledge to make new tools and use tools already used by other crackers.

Conclusion

We can conclude that hackers protect the system from any kind of damage or unauthorized access, whereas crackers are those who try to gain illegal access to the system with their morally ill deeds. The white hats perform the security tests according to a legal contract. The black hats do not follow any such agreement. 

The two terms are usually used quite interchangeably, while the difference between the two is quite big. Nowadays, various issues of system securities are coming up, and crackers pose a threat to internet security. The difference between hacker and cracker is the manner in which they tend to work. Hence, we must know the difference between the two and remember to do hacking and never go towards cracking.

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