Who are Hackers, Crackers, Phreakers?

1. Hackers

• He is the one who is curious about workings of any computer software.
• Very often they are no other than unit of smart programmers.
• They have advanced knowledge of operating system and programming language.
• They require data concerned with variety of security holes, so they can exploit and damage or steal knowledge.

2. Crackers

• They are the ones who break into different systems with malicious intent.
• They carry out activities like making unauthorized access, destroying necessary information, stopping services provided by server, etc.
• Crackers can easily be identified because their actions are malicious.

The difference between a hacker and cracker is,

3. Phreakers

• They are the ones who gain illegal access to the telephone system.
• They are considered to be the original computer hackers as they are the ones who break into telephone system illegally and make long distance calls.
• Phreaker word is a combination of, “Phone” + “Freak”.
• Earlier, Phreakers whistled or used an instrument to mimic tones of phone system operators to route calls and identify payments to avoid paying for an expensive call. Thus, they basically attack phone systems to obtain free phone access or using the phone line to transmit viruses and access, steal and destroy data
• Now, they break into company’s system and manipulate data.