Hackers are making big bucks working for the good guys
Hacking for hire is on the rise, and it’s getting very lucrative.
They are almost all male and almost always work alone. They carry out their activities primarily for the heck of it, but they aren’t shy about reaping the rewards for their efforts, which often inhabit the misty ethical borderline between public service and criminality.
However you choose to categorize it, hacking is now one of the few new job opportunities that are rising in an age in which many employment options are diminishing.
In fact, according to a survey released by HackerOne — a San Francisco-based hacker and bug bounty platform — hacking for fun and profit is burgeoning.
The company — which since its founding in 2012 has seen its participants reap $23 million in rewards ($10 million of that in 2017) for legal or “ethical” hackers — surveyed 1,700 of its members from nearly 200 countries who have successfully reported one or more security vulnerabilities.
The results indicate that hacking, and the “bug bounty” rewards that come with it, can be life changing.
In fact, hacking into systems is rapidly becoming more rewarding than designing those systems in the first place.
In India, home to the largest hacker community, top hackers earn 16 times the median salary of software engineers.
Even in the US, where computer programmers typically make much more than their Indian counterparts, top hackers bring in 2.4 times the salary of their programmer counterparts.
About 37 percent say they hack as a hobby in their spare time, and 12 percent say they earn more than $20,000 a year doing it.
More than 3 percent bring in over $100,000, and 1.1 percent report making over $350,000, with 25 percent of respondents relying on hacking for more than half their income.
For his part, HackerOne co-founder Alex Rice says that hacking, despite its criminal reputation, should be recognized as a legitimate pursuit.
“The hacker community is dramatically skewed in favor of those who wouldn’t do anything illegal,” he says.