HackerOne just lately introduced that over the previous six years, the bug bounty platform has minted 50 contemporary million-dollar bounty hunters by offering them an simply accessible platform to assist firms ferret out safety vulnerabilities in software program, for giant money payouts.
But it surely wasn’t at all times this straightforward to make an entire hustle out of moral hacking. There’s been a shift within the tradition, from “fringe exercise to financially viable occupation,” in line with HackerOne. That change did not occur by probability. It was deliberately crafted by the need of infosec’s earliest pioneers.
Kevin Mitnick is an ideal instance. He catapulted to the highest of the trade regardless of touchdown on the FBI’s Most Needed Record at simply 17 years outdated. Scared straight by the expertise, he grew up and devoted his genius to defending networks in opposition to risk actors. And by the point of his loss of life in 2023, Mitnick was hailed as a cybersecurity “hacker superhero.”
In September 2019, two pen testers named Gary De Mercurio and Justin Wynn had been arrested for conducting a contracted evaluation at a courthouse in Dallas County, Iowa. And after years of authorized wrangling, the costs had been finally dropped, however the two nonetheless battle with employment background checks, problem gaining clearances, and extra, all because of the blemish on their document, they defined on a current Darkish Studying Confidential episode.
On the time of the arrests, Wynn stated the help from the broader hacker group was overwhelming.
“Loads of the hackers, the group that rallied round us stated we’re pulling out of Iowa,” Wynn defined. “[The community said] ‘We’re not going to do jobs there if that is how they’re treating us.'”
