White Hat Hackers are a highly skilled expert who uses hacking knowledge and skills to find security holes in networks, software, and hardware. In contrast to black hat hackers, white hat hackers often benefit society and observe and comply to appropriate norms and systems in their work, notably for improving cybersecurity (or hostile hackers). White hat hackers search for vulnerabilities or workarounds to exploit a system or network as only applicable laws allowed.
These qualified IT specialists with prior experience in internal cyberdefense teams make up this group of good-natured hackers (known as blue teams). While many white hat hackers began as black hats, many of them later switched sides. While more hackers have tended to focus their efforts on assisting corporations and government bodies safeguard their information and systems more effectively, the number of self-taught ex-black-hat hackers has grown recently.
Other groups of hackers, such as black hat hackers and grey hat hackers, who have different motivations than white hat hackers, also exist.
The phrase “white hat” comes from old-time Western films where heroes typically wear white hats and bad guys typically wear black hats.