Nowadays, pirates no longer wear an eye patch and sail the seas in search of treasures, now they are great brains that need no more than a computer and access to Internet to make the own. We know them as "hackers" but, in most cases, the term is not used correctly.
Specifically, it is a person skilled in some branch of technology, often computing, who is dedicated to intervene or make technical alterations with good or bad intentions about a product or device.
The word was coined in 1960 by a group of MIT pioneers and comes from "hack", the sound that technicians from telephone companies made when they hit the devices to make them work. However, "hacker" is a very general word, since these experts can be classified according to the intentions they have.
There are two main types of hackers: Black Hat and White Hat. Its name comes from the cowboy movies where, normally, "the bad guys" is represented with black hats while "the good guys" go with a white hat.
White Hats, white hat hackers, or ethical hackers are responsible for finding vulnerabilities in a system to study and correct the flaws found. It is said that some of those who are in this group today belonged at the time to the Black Hat, and now use all their knowledge to improve security systems.
On the other hand, the Black Hat or cybercriminal, are those black hat hackers who carry out illicit activities to infringe and extract confidential information, mainly for a monetary purpose. They are also creators of all types of malware.
Within this second group we find crackers and phreakers. The former, in addition to embedding viruses or stealing passwords, are dedicated to modifying software and extending their functionalities, while the latter are dedicated to carrying out actions in the world of telecommunications.
Among the black and white hats we find another type of hacker: the Gray Hat, which is dedicated to transgressing the security levels of a company to then offer their services. That is, they attack different systems of a company to demonstrate their capacity and then defend it.
On the other hand, Lamers are a term used for people with a lack of technical skills, maturity and incompetence in a subject, specific activity or within a community. It is a person who presumes to have some knowledge or skills that he does not really possess and that he does not intend to learn.
There are also Newbie or neophytes, which refers to "hacking novices" and, for that reason, they have almost no knowledge or experience in the world of technology.
Finally there are the Hacktivists, who are people who use their skills to penetrate safe systems for political purposes. For example, several Anonymous attacks have been described as Hacktivism.