Security News > 2020 > November > Boom in Demand for Friendly Hackers as 5G Approaches
As the number of online devices surges and superfast 5G connections roll out, record numbers of companies are offering handsome rewards to ethical hackers who successfully attack their cybersecurity systems.
At a conference hosted by Nokia last week, "Friendly hacker" Keren Elazari said that co-opting hackers - many of whom are amateurs - to hunt for vulnerabilities "Was looked at as a trendy Silicon Valley thing six to eight years ago".
"Employing just one full-time security engineer in London might cost a company 80,000 pounds a year, whereas we open companies up to this global community of hundreds of thousands of hackers with a huge diversity in skills," Prash Somaiya, security solutions architect at HackerOne, told AFP. "We're starting to see an uptick in IoT providers taking hacking power seriously," Somaiya said, adding that HackerOne now regularly ships internet-connected toys, thermostats, scooters and cars out to its hackers for them to try to breach.
The rewards for hackers can be high: 200 of HackerOne's bug-hunters have now claimed more than $100,000 in prizes, while nine have breached the million-dollar earnings mark.
The rush of companies shifting to remote working during the pandemic has also led to "a surge in hacktivity", HackerOne said, with a 59 percent increase in hackers signing up and a one-third increase in rewards paid out.