Cropped shot of an unidentifiable hacker using a laptop late at night
Bharat Bhise HNA was of great help to use last month when we wrote a piece on the importance of businesses protecting their computer systems and networks with security software. That piece prompted quite the response from our readers, many of whom wishing to know what the motives are for people who hack. We all know that hackers breach systems, leave viruses and backdoors but what is their motive behind these attacks?There are in fact a number of reasons why these people decide to hack, and here are the most common reasons for cyberattacks and hacks.
Ethical Hackers
Let’s start off with the good guys, those who are paid by security software companies and by private businesses to hack for them. The role of an ethical hacker is to try and find flaws or gaps in the security system, and once they find them they can be repaired, resolved and help to increase the quality of the security system which is in place. Unlike most hackers these guys are paid by companies to do some hacking of their own systems.
Criminals
Naturally there are many hackers who cyberattack with criminal intent, they will often look to steal information or money from the victim. In many cases however we are seeing that the hackers aren’t actually the ones with the criminal intentions, beyond the hack and the theft of the information. More and more we are seeing hackers for hire, who are paid by criminals to breach systems and to obtain personal information, trade secrets or information which can help them to perform illegal financial activities.
Making a Name
There is a really common reason for hacking within this community which is that many people wish to make a name for themselves by hacking into hard-to-breach security systems. Those who do this have no intention in stealing information or viewing the private data which the victim may have on their computer systems, it is just to show the community that they have some real skill when it comes to hacking and that they rose to the challenge and managed to get through a difficult security barrier. This is more common than you may think and whilst it is still illegal, it is not done with criminal intentions.
To Disrupt
The most common type of cyberattack is called a DDoS or Denial of Service attack and it involves hundreds of thousands of requests being sent a server at the same time, which overwhelms it and causes it to crash. We have seen this happen a lot with big companies and even the websites of politicians, as the hackers look to cause as much disruption as they can. There are two main reasons behind this, the first is that the attackers are looking to showcase the power that they have, the second is to cause problems to someone who the hacker doesn’t support, as we have seen with more politically motivated attacks.
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