Although they are accused of being one in the same, hackers and crackers are two distinctly different groups with different goals pertaining to computers.

In cybersecurity terminology, 'hackers' traditionally refers to individuals who explore systems, often for educational or benign purposes (e.g., ethical hackers), while 'crackers' specifically refers to individuals who bypass security or exploit systems with malicious intent.

The distinction between 'hackers' (often referring to ethical or white-hat activities) and 'crackers' (referring to malicious or black-hat activities) is a commonly accepted one in the cybersecurity community.