The term ‘hacking’ is used very broadly, but in general is used to refer to seeking and exploiting weaknesses to networks and databases.
Hacking may target a network, which allows the hacker to gain access to a network and then intercept traffic on it.
It can also be aimed at gaining entry to a database of information.
This activity can be both legal and illegal and there are several possible objectives behind it.
There are many types of hacking, including cyber crime, ethical hacking, hacktivism, and state-sponsored hacking.
Cyber crime will usually be trying to gain entry to a network to gain access to data that they can use either for financial gain or feed back into more attacks.
This could include data such as intellectual property or more mundane personal information such as names or contact details. All of this data has a monetary value.