In a variety of modern and futuristic settings, characters may well encounter hackers, even if they never meet these hackers in person. Here are ten different hackers, with their handles and general behaviour, to encounter.

• 4NN1H11470r: 4NN1H11470r is a hacker who just likes breaking stuff and causing trouble. They have no real goal beyond hurting other people, and if that leads to deaths, so much the better.
• H1 7H3r3: H1 7H3r3 just does it for the challenge; the more secure the system, the bigger the challenge. Once into a system, H1 7H3r3 leaves comments in supposedly secure file locations offering their services to fix the security problem.
• 5113NC3: 5113NC3 is a hacker that is after money, but not one that goes for the big scores. Instead, 5113NC3 just siphons off bits from many different transactions; a few pennies here, a dollar there. Over thousands of transactions, these amounts add up.
• J0K3r: J0K3r likes pulling pranks by breaking into systems and getting things to malfunction. These are not malicious pranks, overall, but they are often embarrassing.
• 5H0W M3 7H3 M0N3Y: 5H0W M3 7H3 M0N3Y is a purely mercenary, and completely amoral, hacker. They will do whatever it is they are paid to do, and are not bothered by such outdated notions as ethics. 5H0W M3 7H3 M0N3Y will work for anyone who can pay, no matter how objectionable.
• M07H3r 6414: M07H3r 6414 is an environmental hacktivist who specialises in breaking into the files of companies, especially those engaged in greenwashing to make them look good, and exposes the dirty secrets they’d rather keep hidden.
• 8r34K 7H3 5Y573M: 8r34K 7H3 5Y573M is an anarchist. Their sole goal is the undermining and destruction of existing systems; political, social, monetary, whatever. 8r34K 7H3 5Y573M doesn’t seem to have anything they want to replace those systems with either.
• 1NQU15170r: 1NQU15170r is a political hacker. They seek to uncover the secrets politicians try to hide and release them to the press in order to remove from office those politicians that 1NQU15170r finds objectionable.
• CH4r17Y: CH4r17Y breaks into local government systems and diverts money away from those areas. CH4r17Y instead moves the monies through a complex web of transactions until they are received by local charities and other causes.
• 1UN471C: 1UN471C gives no impression that they’re rational at all. What they do changes from week to week, day to day and sometimes even hour to hour. They can go from participating in a crime, to shopping the others to the police, to supporting a politician to undermining their campaign with no apparent logic.