What is it

Origin

The term's origin is often attributed to hacker culture theorist Richard Stallman(though he denies coining it)[2] to contrast the exploitative hacker with the white hathacker who hacks protectively by drawing attention to vulnerabilities in computer systems that require repair.[3] The black hat/white hat terminology originates in theWestern genre of popular American culture, in which black and white hats denote villainous and heroic cowboys respectively.[4]

Black hat hackers are the stereotypical illegal hacking groups often portrayed in popular culture, and are "the epitome of all that the public fears in a computer criminal".[5] Black hat hackers break into secure networks to destroy, modify, or steal data, or to make the networks unusable for authorized network users.[6]