White hat or ethical hacking, which involves the application of penetration methodologies to gauge a company’s IT security and susceptibility to vulnerabilities, is being encouraged by corporations – and they are paying a lot of money for it.
These companies are employing a simple strategy where they want to be hacked on purpose, and in doing so, security vulnerabilities are identified and patched.
Motivated by vulnerability and bug reporting, HackerOne, a US-based ethical hacker group has reported that it has served 800 corporate clients who splashed bonuses to the tune of $15 million to the group since its inception in 2012. Those bonuses have significantly increased in the past two years, owing to the realization of how vulnerable companies are to intruders and malicious hackers.
HackerOne has rendered its services to companies such as Uber and Twitter. It has been reported that companies are even paying more to outsmart intrusions from black hat hackers.
For example, Google has paid out approximately $3 million through its native hacker bonus program, while Uber has paid out around $860,000 to HackerOne in the past year. Furthermore, HackerOne’s need for ethical hacking has been fueled by the wide adoption of IoT devices in homes and work places, which, if not properly managed, is an intruder’s playing field.
Closer home, corporations have been rattled by the recent wake up calls that befell the nation’s tax-collecting corporation, KRA. Supposedly, hackers were able to infiltrate the system and made away with billions of shillings.
As such, the demand for ethical hackers is astronomical, which is why their pay is handsome.
So, go ahead, polish those skills, get out of your basement, ethically hack corporations and get paid for it.
