Many people see the world of IT security as a black-and-white world. However, gray hat hacking does play a role in the security environment. One of the most common examples given of a gray hat hacker is someone who exploits a security vulnerability in order to spread public awareness that the vulnerability exists. In this case, experts might say that the difference between a white hat hacker and a gray hat hacker is that the gray hat hacker exploits the vulnerability publicly, which allows other black hat hackers to take advantage of it. By contrast, a white hat hacker may do it privately in order to alert the company, without making the results public.