Historical Meaning

• In the earliest use of the term, before it incurred a negative image, the word hacker applied to an intellectually curious individual with computer technical skills. Computer hacking in this sense simply referred to software developers and those who used their technical skills to improve computer system performance. Eventually, "hacker" evolved to refer to individuals who deliberately set about malicious activity directed towards computer systems, replacing an earlier term "cracker."
  
  

Purpose

• Once deliberate, unauthorized and malicious infiltration of computer systems began, organizations needed to create defensive mechanisms against them. Legal hacking refers to "hired hackers" that infiltrate a system to find out the system's vulnerabilities and weaknesses. This allows the company to take corrective action to prevent malicious hacking. Failing prevention, the next best scenario involves prompt detection followed by corrective action to end the invasion as quickly as possible. Organizations contract with computer systems experts to conduct such penetration tests and to design protocols to protect sensitive data from external accessibility or corruption during any malicious hacking infiltrations.
  
  

Implementation

• Once "hacking" came to mean malicious or invasive activity by an unauthorized individual into computer systems, the computer industry eventually defined three different categories of hackers. "Black hat hackers" have the technical skills to conduct damaging attacks on computer systems and often do so. "Gray hat hackers" may swing back and forth between illegal hacking and some involvement with hired hacking. White hat individuals apply exceptional computer skills towards "legal hacking" to help companies protect themselves against the "black hat hackers." Most often, you will find white hat hacking activities conducted by someone like a security analyst or security consultant.
  
  

Counter Attack

• Although the legalities of "legal hacking" remain unclear as of 2003, with no available updates as of early 2011, some legal experts maintain that generalized nuisance laws cover the rights of computer systems owners to use the same black hat practices, or "vigilante hacking" to protect their system security. These nuisance laws may further allow companies the right to sue the malicious black hat hackers for reimbursement of the cost of such vigilante hacking efforts. In this context, legal hacking may include vigilante or counterstrike hacking activity.