Origins of hacking

Perpetrators of cybercrime are not all stereotypical hoody wearing figures, and the term hacking did not originally refer to criminal activity against or enabled by technology.

The term hacking in relation to technology is believed to have originated in the mid 1950s with students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Tech Model Railroad club. The members modified the trains and signals and later turned their attention to tinkering with and enhancing computers and their codes.

These days hacking, when referring to malicious activity, is when there is unauthorised access to networks, websites and restricted systems via exploits. There is a misconception that every cyber intrusion is a result of hacking, however this is not the case. When criminals have stolen account credentials from someone who has fallen victim to a phishing email, this is a scam not hacking!

Hackers in hoodies

Why is the hacker in hoody stereotype so prolific? How does this image of an ominous omnipotent being wearing a hoody and skulking in front of a keyboard and binary code help us to understand and protect ourselves from cybercrime?

It doesn't.

Let's change the narrative. Hackers come in all types, and not all criminals who commit cybercrime are hackers and not all hackers are criminals. Hackers can be any gender, any age, they may wear hoodies, or they may be stylishly dressed in formal wear. 

The start of the twenty-first century has seen the rise of black, grey and white hat hackers.[i]  The terms are a nod to old Western shows where the good guy wore a white hat and the bad one a black, please note they are not talking about hoodies!

Ethical hackers who work for or are hired by companies to perform checks on the security of networks, also call pen (penetration) testers, help to support the impovements of security networks, people and policy within a business. They actively look for vulnerabilities in networks and procedures to exploit and do so to provide better infomration to a business owner of where the security needs to be improved. These hackers are called white hat hackers.

Grey hat hackers actively search for vulnerabilites to exploit, however they do this without prior consent of the business owner, meaning they are doing so without legitimacy.

Black hat hackers, are the ones popularised by the hoody wearing stereotype, they are the criminals who exploit vulenrabilities in networks for malicious intent.

Whether legitimately carrying on a security function, looking for vulernabilties without authority but without malice, or actually expoiting systems for the purposes of crime, these are people of all different types, from all different areas. These are all hackers, they do not all wear hoodies.

We need to stop the binary-curtained, hoody-wearing elite hacker narrative & talk about how cybercrime is just another crime type that we don't have to be technical to protect ourselves from.

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[i] Caldwell, T. (2011). Ethical hackers: putting on the white hat. Network Security, 2011(7), 10-13.

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