The Hats Hackers Wear + Supply Chain Attacks

Authorized attackers, also known as white-hat hackers

are those who act with authorization and seek to discover security vulnerabilities with the intent of correcting them. White-hat hackers may either be employees of the organization or contractors hired to engage in penetration testing

Unauthorized attackers, also known as black-hat hackers

are those with malicious intent. They seek to defeat security controls and compromise the confidentiality, integrity or availability of information and systems for their own, unauthorized purposes.

Semi-authorized attackers, also known as gray-hat hackers

are those who fall somewhere between white- and black-hat hackers. They act without proper authorization, but they do so with the intent of informing their targets of any security vulnerabilities

Supply chain attacks

Sophisticated attackers may attempt to interfere with an organization’s IT supply chain, including hardware providers, software providers, and service providers. Attacking an organization’s vendors and suppliers provides an indirect mechanism to attack the organization itself