Black Hat Hacker

A person who uses his computer skills for illegal activities that lead to personal benefits.
Ex: A black hacker could be someone attacking a computer network in order to gain money out of it. 

Criminal Hacker = Lawbreaker
They are users are gifted but unethical and they have malicious motivations. They are considered as electronics thugs that are vandalizing the web for personal satisfaction.

 

Grey Hat Hacker

A person who uses his skills for both illegal and legal activities.
Sometimes, grey hat hackers could work on the ethical side but at the same time he could cross the line between the ethical and unethical.

White Hat Hacker

A person who uses his  skills to stop black hacker activities. These hackers work for government, companies, institution etc.
Ex: A white hacker could be  someone doing security tests for a company to find the weaknesses of their network and avoid black hackers to break into them.

Ethical Hacker = Modern Security Technician
They are people with natural talent with computers that are employed by companies or branches of government to protect computer networks. Hacking is their job and they are considered as ethical hackers because they have no motivation to steal information or to destroy networks belonging to their employers.

Academic Hacker = Creative Computer Artist
They are passionate people that see no interest in vandalizing or stealing from the internet. They are creative people that are interested in inventing or changing programs that already exist to improve them. Their obsessive goal is no innovate and improve what already exists in the world of computer. These hackers are not harmless and do not seek any harm to other networks.

Hobby Hacker = Home Thinkerer
They are computer maniacs. They like to modify and disassemble their computer just for fun. Most of them are gamers, so performance is the first aspect they will want to improve on their computer. These hackers may do ''white collar crimes'' such as downloading pirated music or movies.