Cyber Development Turned Sour

          Why do people do the things they do? More towards the topic, Why do hackers breach networks and what is there objective? there are many differentiations between computer hackers but, as stated in a previously read scholarly article, there are three main personas. The white hats who consist are no less than model citizens who usually gain careers in a company to improve network security. Black Hats, whose goals can consist of personal gain, gaining private data, or anything of the sort. Lastly are the Grey Hats. These individuals usually do what they do to gain knowledge, notoriety, or just satisfaction of completing the challenge at hand. But what leads these people to do so?

          Above shows a very simplistic graph of each type of hacker (as stated by the article) and an understanding of their intent and development but, even the scholarly article stated that the information provided on a hacker’s development were no more than theories. However, it was mentioned that more than most hackers develop an interest in computers earlier in life, attempting to understand their functionality. Included was also a idea, more or less, on the development of these individuals and how certain circumstances in their development (divorce, abuse, abandonment, etc) could dictate their path towards becoming a Back Hat.

          One thing I could personally agreed on was the ethical viewpoint these hackers developed. It only makes sense that someone who had been abused throughout their life or went through detrimental trauma would wish to harm others through cyber terrorism (assuming this individual is in fact, a hacker). Although just theories, the research provided could potentially lead to a breakthrough in how computer hackers actually develop and how to prevent Black Hats.

Source: Cheng Xu, Zhengchuanhong, Qing Hu, and Zhang. “Why Computer Talents Become Computer Hackers.” Communications of the ACM Commun. ACM 56.4 (2013): 64. Web.