There's an old saying, "If you can't beat them,
join them." For many managers and senior executives, the new version may
be "If you can't beat them, hire them." Several hackers, known for
their skills in finding and exploiting security vulnerabilities in
commercial products, have been hired by some of the biggest names in the
business to redirect their talents and energy. Facebook is famous for
its all-night coding marathons called "hackathons," and the company
proudly displays a sign "Hack" outside its corporate headquarters. While
plenty of hackers go on to start up their own security consulting
companies, many go ahead and accept those job offers in government,
nonprofit and the private sector. There are estimates that one in four
hackers online may be employees of the United States government. Some
executives are leery of hiring hackers, worried about any potential
damage to their brand as well as the possibility of an insider breach.
Others seem to think it's possible to give these talented employees
enough challenges to keep them honest. For this slide show, eWEEK
compiled a list of some of the hackers who landed a job for some of the
biggest names in the business.
More: http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/10-Notorious-Hackers-Who-Went-to-Work-for-The-Man-304218/
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