A black hat hacker exploits the vulnerability and launches hacking attacks with malicious intent. In crypto, black hat hackers exploit vulnerabilities in smart contracts to drain decentralized apps and steal cryptocurrencies from DeFi protocols and other platforms.
Black hat hackers, as opposed to white hat hackers, discover vulnerabilities in code and exploit them for financial gains. In the process, they cause considerable economic and reputational damage to their targets, often resulting in significant losses for investors in the crypto project.
Malicious hackers could also launch cyberattacks on vulnerable systems to steal users' identities, misusing this information for financial gains while causing irreparable damage to their targets. Another set of hackers, known as white hat hackers, act more responsibly by discovering vulnerabilities and highlighting them to the project's developers so they can fix them before suffering losses through black hat hacking attempts.