Poteet, chief security officer at AppDefense, is the type of hacker commonly referred to as a white-hat hacker or security researcher—someone who digs for system holes to point out where trouble could occur. Black-hat hackers are just the opposite—people who try to gain access to systems and the data on them for nefarious purposes. In the past, most hackers were in it for fun or for bragging rights.
Now, black hats are selling exploits for tens of thousands of dollars as the malware industry capitalizes on flaws to capture passwords, credentials for banking sites and personal information for identity theft and financial fraud.
Learning how black-hat hackers think, what they’re looking for and how they get it should be a fundamental part of any company’s security strategy.