**2. Motivation and objectives of hackers**

The purpose of a hacker is to break the security of computers and networks affecting the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information/service on systems. Such activities of hackers are considered illegal as they invest their time and know how, to make personal gains and breach the security across networks. Before looking at the taxonomy of computer threats, it is necessary to classify the different types of hackers. Each type of hacker is expected to have their own motivation for their activities. The most common of those are included here:

**Fun:** Fun is the only motivation for the script kiddies and lot of nonserious hackers. For them, the breaking into a secure system is a challenging and adventurous enjoyable game to test their wits and skills.

**Vulnerability testing:** Vulnerability testing is done by administrators to locate vulnerabilities and hence develop protections. The same is also done by hackers to identify vulnerabilities in target systems and to find the exploits for those vulnerabilities. This is almost a pre-phase of an attack.

**Theft:** Theft or stealing of data is when hackers infiltrate on a database of credentials of individuals or organizations.

**Espionage:** Espionage is another type of theft where the hacker tries to get protected information instead of the direct financial gain. The information stolen can be either sold in black market or used by adversaries to gain strategic advantages.

**Spamming:** Spamming is not just about unsolicited emails. This spam can be due to certain particular malware that invade the web browser and devastate with unwanted ads.

**Control:** The hacker uses a Trojan or other means to take remote control over another system. Then the hacker can turn that compromised system into a bot or a zombie computer that they use to power spam or to deploy distributed denial of service attacks.

**Disruption:** Disruption of services or access to information, by taking over websites or social media accounts, is usually an act of competition, protest, or rivalry. This effect will slow down or shut down of the target's Internet activity.
