gray hat
The term "gray hat" is commonly used in computer security to describe individuals who operate in a morally ambiguous space between ethical and unethical hacking.
🇺🇸 US Voice:
🇬🇧 UK Voice:
Definition
C1Computer Security
(slang, technical)A cybersecurity expert who may sometimes break laws or ethical standards but does not have harmful intentions, often aiming to find and fix security weaknesses.
Example
- The gray hat hacker discovered a vulnerability in the system and reported it to the company without exploiting it.
B2Ethics
(informal, idiomatic)An individual whose actions are morally ambiguous, not fitting neatly into categories of purely good or evil.
Example
- As a gray hat, he often made decisions that were ethically questionable but not entirely wrong.
Similar
Terms that have similar or relatively close meanings to "gray hat":
black hatwhite hatgrey hengrey areablack-hat hackertin hatgrey alien