Difference Between Hackers and Crackers

The major difference between hackers and crackers is that hackers are decent and honest professionals whereas crackers are unethical and seek to profit from unlawful activities. Let us see the difference between hackers and crackers listed in the table below.

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Key Differences Between Hackers and Crackers

Hackers	Crackers
The hackers with good intentions to gain knowledge.	They hack to violate a system for benefits.
They are well skilled and equipped with knowledge of OS and programming languages.	They are not as skilled as hackers, and they may know a few tricks to steal or temper data from a system.
They work in favour of organizations to protect data and provide security to the data.	They work to harm the organizations and gain benefits from them.
They are ethical professionals.	They are unethically involved in illegal activities over the internet.
They have legal authorities and certificates with them.	They may or may not have certificates.

What is Hacking?

Hacking is a strategy or planning that is used to gain access to unauthorized systems. To put it simply, getting unauthorized access to a network or computer. That person is exceptionally intelligent and proficient with computers. The skilled person in hacking is divided into two categories:

Hackers
Crackers

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What are Hackers?

Hackers are good people who hack systems for a good purpose, to obtain knowledge, while Crackers are bad people who violate the system with bad intentions. The difference between hackers and crackers basis the intention of hacking a system. They are programmers or computer professionals with sufficient knowledge of programming and coding who discover gaps in a system and attempt to close them in order to defend the system.

The hackers attempt to eliminate holes in the system in order to make it more secure. They never work with the intention of causing harm to the system or stealing and misusing data. We have understood the term hacking and the intention behind hacking the system. Now proceeding further, we will discuss the meaning of crackers and the intentions behind them.

What are Crackers?

Crackers are people who gain access to a computer to harm or temper the data. They may steal the data or destroy the information of the system. Crackers are unauthorized persons who are involved in illegal activities. Crackers are always hidden as they hack the system to perform illegal activities. The illegal activities are phishing, stealing important bank details of a person, and bypassing passwords on websites and other social media accounts.

Crackers, like hackers, have a thorough understanding of systems, programming, and coding. They also engage in the same actions as hackers. However, their goal is to compromise the system and network in order to gain unauthorized access. This is the primary difference between hackers and crackers.

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FAQs on Difference Between Hackers and Crackers

What is the difference between hackers and crackers?

The most basic difference between hackers and crackers is in their intention to hack a system. Hackers hack with good intentions to provide protection and security to the data. In contrast, crackers hack the system to break or violate the system for illegal activity.

What are the types of hackers?

The individuals skilled in hacking are divided into two different categories:

Hackers.
Crackers.

The difference between hackers and crackers is that they hack the systems for different reasons. A hacker performs hacking for good reasons, to provide integrity to data, security from errand users, etc. on the other hand, a cracker performs hacking of the system to violate it.

What are the types of hackers?

A hacker is a skilful person having knowledge of programming language, networking, and operating systems to perform hacking. Hackers are good people because they perform hacking to provide security to data. Hackers are divided into three major types:

White-Hat Hackers
Black-Hat Hackers
Grey-Hat Hackers

What is the difference between hackers and crackers based on skill set?

The difference between hackers and crackers based on skill set is that a hacker is highly skilled with the knowledge of OS and programming languages to provide security from errand users. In contrast, crackers may or may not be as highly skilled as a hacker. They may know a few tricks to violate the system and gain information illegally.

Who are white hat hackers?

White hat hackers are ethical hackers. They are certified hackers with the purpose of protecting the user data from unauthorized hackers called crackers. White hat hackers learn hacking through courses and ensure security from illegal access to data.

What is the difference between hackers and crackers based on their objective?

Based on their objective, the difference between hackers and crackers is that the cracker's objective is to purposefully violate computer security, whereas a hacker's goal of using technology to solve a problem.

Difference Between Hackers and Crackers | Hackers vs Crackers