Evil beings who have the power to wipe out your credit rating, cancel your cable TV, raise your insurance premiums, and raid your social security pension. Eccentrics who always avert their eyes and mumble under their breath about black helicopters and CIA transmissions. Paranoid social deviants who could start World War III from the privacy of their bedrooms. Or so the mainstream media would have you believe. In reality, most hackers are ordinary people with a great deal of curiosity, above-average skills with a computer, a good understanding of human nature, and plenty of time to kill.
Hackers have no distinguishing characteristics.
Your next door neighbor could be a hacker, as could your niece or nephew, one of your co-workers, or even the kid who serves you coffee in the morning. Not all hackers are dangerous and out to destroy business or damage lives. The view of the general public toward hackers is mixed. Network hackers generally will try to gain unauthorized access to private computer networks. Network hackers employ strategies that they refer to as cracking to gain access.