Black hat groups often portrayed in popular culture, and are "the epitome of all that the public fears in a computer criminal". Black hat hackers break into secure networks to destroy, modify, or steal data, or to make the networks unusable for authorized network users. Black hat A black hat hacker (or black-hat hacker) is a hacker who "violates computer security for little reason beyond maliciousness or for personal gain". The term's origin is often attributed to hacker culture theorist Richard Stallman (though he denies coining it) to contrast the exploitative hacker with the white hat hacker who hacks protectively by drawing
Hacker is, using playful cleverness to achieve a goal. But then, it is supposed, the meaning of the term shifted over the decades and came to refer to computer criminals. As the security-related usage has spread more widely, the original meaning has become less known. In popular usage and in the media, "computer intruders" or "computer criminals" is the exclusive meaning of the word today. (For example, "An Internet 'hacker' broke through state government security systems in March.") In the computer enthusiast (Hacker Culture) community, the primary meaning is a complimentary description for a particularly brilliant programmer or technical expert. (For