Differences between hackers and crackers are as follows:
| Hackers |
Crackers |
| A hacker is a person intensely interested in the arcane and recondite working of any computer operating system. |
A cracker is one who breaks into or otherwise violates the system integrity of remote machines with malicious intent. |
| Hackers obtain advanced knowledge of operating systems and programming languages. |
Having gained unauthorized access, crackers destroy vital data, deny legitimate users service, or cause problems for their targets. |
| Hackers constantly seek further knowledge, freely share what they have discovered and never intentionally damage data. |
Crackers can easily be identified because their actions are malicious. |
