What is the Difference Between Hacker and Cracker

The main difference between hacker and cracker is that a hacker is a person who does not damage data intentionally while a cracker is a person who damages data intentionally.

Generally, individuals and organizations maintain their data and resources. It is important to safeguard them as they are confidential and supports making business decisions. Therefore, it is necessary to use methods to safeguard resources and data. Furthermore, computer security is an emerging technology that focuses on taking steps to protect data and resources. Hacker and cracker are two people associated with computer security.

Key Areas Covered

1. What is Hacker
      -Definition, Functionality
2. What is Cracker
     -Definition, Functionality
3. Difference Between Hacker and Cracker
     -Comparison of key differences

Key Terms

Cracker, Hacker

Difference Between Hacker and Cracker - Comparison Summary

What is Hacker

A hacker is a person who is interested in working on an operating system in depth. Generally, hackers are programmers. They have good and advanced knowledge on the operating systems, programming languages and networking concepts. They are capable of identifying the risk of the system. A hacker tries to gain further knowledge to discover technological areas. Moreover, he does not damage data intentionally.

What is Cracker

A cracker is a person who violates the system integrity of remote machines with malicious intent. He gets unauthorized access to system resources and data. Crackers also destroy vital information of the organization. He denies legitimate users service and causes problems for the targets. Thus, this can result in software, hardware and network issues.

Difference Between Hacker and Cracker - Compare Summary

Crackers can steal personal and confidential details such as banking information, passwords and license details and affect the proper functioning of the systems. Furthermore, a cracker may work for profit or some altruistic purpose or cause.

Difference Between Hacker and Cracker

Definition

A hacker is a computer expert that uses their technical knowledge to overcome a problem while a cracker is a person who breaks into someone else’s computer or a network illegally. Thus, this is the fundamental difference between hacker and cracker.

Basis

Importantly, a hacker does not damage data intentionally, whereas a cracker damages data intentionally.

Objective

Furthermore, the objective of a hacker is to use his technical knowledge to solve a problem, whereas the objective of a cracker is to intentionally breach computer security.

Conclusion

In brief, hacker and cracker are two people associated with computer security. Although we use the terms hacker and cracker, interchangeably, there is a difference between hacker and cracker. A hacker is a person who does not damage data intentionally while a cracker is a person who damages data intentionally.

References:

1.“Hacker.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 6 Aug. 2019, Available here.
2.“What Is Cracker? – Definition from WhatIs.com.” SearchSecurity, Available here.
3.“Informit.” InformIT, Available here.

Image Courtesy:

1.”35611264264″ by www.inkmedia.eu (CC BY 2.0)via Flickr

About the Author: Lithmee

Lithmee holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Systems Engineering and is reading for her Master’s degree in Computer Science. She is passionate about sharing her knowldge in the areas of programming, data science, and computer systems.

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