A cracker is a cybercriminal who breaks into systems with the intent to cause harm or carry out malicious activities. A cracker will often attempt to take advantage of any loopholes in software or hardware or by simply guessing the system’s password.
Crackers try to gain access to a user’s system to acquire private information, sabotage the system’s operations, or attack other systems via the compromised one.
Cracker vs. hacker
Crackers and hackers sometimes lack distinction, and the terms are even used interchangeably. But a hacker is quite different from a cracker, especially when it comes to motives. A cracker is malicious and seeks access to systems to carry out malicious activities.
The term hacker covers a few other subcategories, but primarily, a hacker is an enthusiast and will only hack websites or devices where they find vulnerabilities. The hack will in turn spur the website or device owners to beef up security — often through the hacker’s suggestions.
Hackers possess a healthy, working grasp of cybersecurity and programming languages and only hack with good intentions.
Crackers are different; they have all the skills of a hacker and none of the goodwill or intent.
