You miss the point.

Anyone can justify anything by convincing oneself that their case is noble. Both those names you mention are convinced, I’m sure, that their cause is “noble” thus they have/had a god-given right to act the way they do/did and thus their actions and approved by some “GOD”. In the last 2 great conflicts both sides were convinced “god” was on their side. It was BS. I’m glad about the side that won. The alternative to “boots on the ground” is to have no reason to put “boots on the ground”.

To me stoping madmen such as North Korea/Iran leaders from completing nuclear weapons and destroyng the world qualifies as a noble cause and they can do it by any means necesary.Compared to boots on the ground and all out war its a small price to pay dont u think?

So then any time someone has a “noble” cause which they define as “noble” it means rules don’t apply. A funny little man who looked like Charlie Chaplin thought he had a “noble” cause about 70 years ago.

They used stuxnet for a greater good so I think they are on a category of theyr own.

Your have forgotten one which I believe is the original meaning as in hacking a square peg into a round hole or in computer terms is like taking two disparate systems and hacking them so they can work with each other. This describes much of the Internet protocols.

But that is not the main purpose of this comment which is summarised in the following:
“A grey hat does not ask for permission but has no intention to cause harm or damage though their means may be illegal. A white hat is hired and permitted to do his work. A black hat is not.”

So where does this put an unnamed Nation State Agency. They are hired and permitted to work and do not ask for permission but also do not fit white nor grey since they intend to harm as we saw in Stuxnet. “Stuxnet is a malicious computer worm believed to be a jointly built American-Israeli cyberweapon.” They fit the black hat definition a bit more but are not online criminals as the government knows of their activity but does not prosecute and there is no personal gain involved; not even bragging rights.