Hacker of 30 years explains why he went from being a ‘black to white hat’

An American hacker of three decades has explained why he turned his back on being a 'black hat' in favour of a career with a 'white hat'.

Hacking is becoming more widespread by the day, from phishing and DDoS attacks to malware and password cracking.

Earlier this year, the UK government estimated that businesses in the country experienced around 7.78 million cyber crimes of all types every single year. Of these, roughly 116,000 non-phishing cyber crimes took place in this time.

UK charities were also targeted by criminals, experiencing approximately 924,000 cyber crimes of all types in this time.

Well, one hacker has explained his role in all of this, as cyber crimes become more and more common around the world.

A cybersecurity analyst at a major Silicon Valley company in the heart of California, USA, the hacker's identity has been obviously hidden due to his background and nature of what he's talking about.

]With more than 30 years of experience in the hacking business, he knows everything and anything there is to do with keeping yourself online.

'Black hat' hacker

Speaking to VICE, the hacker explained he used to be a 'black hat' on the internet.

In layman's terms, this is a cybercriminal who goes after legitimate businesses and organisations for intentions that are not very good.

"Traditionally, a black hat hacker is one who is not bound by any kind of ethical code, willing to break the law, and is in it for specifically his own purposes," he explains.

"I at one time considered myself a black hat and changed to a white hat."

He's dished the details on his time as a black and white hat (VICE)

'White hat' hacker

You can probably assume what this is.

Kind of like a cyber-security Batman, white hats use their hacking skills for good, finding security issues on websites or important systems to fix before they are taken advantage of by criminals.

The hacker says: "White hats tend to be hackers who are bound by an ethical code, who try to do things to improve the greater good, and who are bound by the law.

"So I look for vulnerabilities in systems that haven’t been scrutinised before that may represent significant risk.

"But I also do things like hunt the criminals who are targeting hospitals or who are targeting the businesses that I’m looking out for."

The internet can be a dangerous place (Getty Stock Images)

Why white hats are so important

In the interview, the hacker explains why fighting for ordinary people is so important in an increasingly dangerous online world.

"By looking at the attacks that take place, by understanding the infrastructure that's used by the criminals, I can work out where they’re coming from," he says.

"The vast majority of hacking is staring at code and understanding how sites are put together and how things work, and then working out how you can subvert that process to take control of it.

"So ransomware is an attack technique that’s been around for decades. Modern ransomware is usually a piece of malware that gets on your system, encrypts all of your data, and then holds that hostage, demanding that you contact the gangs that are operating it, paying them in some form of currency before they’ll give you the key that decrypts your data and gives it back to you.

"The challenge is it's not a scenario where you want to say, 'Well, why don’t we stop people from paying them?'. Because ultimately you have to protect the victims.

"I’ve watched hospitals get encrypted and people are left with a choice: do I pay to decrypt the data or do I risk lives? Over the last year, we’ve definitely seen a significant acceleration in ransomware. And I think that’s because there’s been a huge increase in the profitability."