Subject areaRules, risk and compliance
Also known asblack hatmalicious hacker
A cracker is someone who forces their way into a computer system without the owner's permission to steal data, damage it, extort money or gain notoriety.
The term was coined by hackers themselves in the mid-1980s, to defend their name from the way the press used it: "to crack" means to break open, and also refers to stripping the protection from software.
The cracker logic reverses that of the hacker. The hacker wants to understand a system and shares what they find so that others can improve it; the cracker looks for the flaw to exploit it and keeps it hidden, because its value lasts only until someone closes it. The technical skill may be the same: permission and purpose change, and therefore so does the legal status.
In the European Union, Directive 2013/40/EU harmonises penalties for attacks against information systems, and every member state treats unauthorised access to a system as a criminal offence. For a company, a cracker is a reputational risk even before a technical one: a hijacked corporate account speaks to the public with the brand's voice.
Source: The Jargon File, voce «cracker»; Codice penale, art. 615-ter (legge 547/1993); direttiva 2013/40/UE.
An example
A cracker takes over the password of a restaurant chain's social media account, changes its name and picture and posts fake announcements: the account has to be suspended and the company takes hours to regain control, as happened to Burger King in 2013.
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Enrico Giubertoni. Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0: you may quote, translate and adapt this entry with the author’s name and a link, stating any changes. For commercial use, write to info@enricogiubertoni.com
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