Would you hire a hacker?

[Phantasm66]

You hear stories about this all the time: some hacker gets caught snooping on some corporate network, gets sent to jail, does his (or her) time, and then promptly on release gets hired by the same company they just violated as a security expert.

I have often put these kinds of stories down to being something not unlike a kind of "computing urban myth", but that was until Sven Jaschan, an 18-year-old from Waffensen in Lower Saxony, who is also thought to be behind the Netsky virus and is currently awaiting trial for his virus-writing antics, was hired by German firewall company Securepoint.

If you think about this, it kind of makes sense. The chap was a teenager when he did the crime - he's likely to grow up and never do anything similar again. And, he obviously has the required skills, or at least the kind of mind and talent needed.

This of course begs the question of other company CIOs - would you hire a hacker? Surprisingly, it looks like 50% of those asked said yes...

 

[Phantasm66]

damn right I'd hire a hacker. I'd make him technical lead for the whole firewall team. I'd make him head of security.

There's still enough ego-stroking in that to keep him happy, and the money will be sweet. Of course its the answer.

Or is it?

 

[Phantasm66]

"Mikko Hyppönen, director of antivirus research at Finnish company F-Secure, said that the authors of Netsky are under the impression they are good guys because they attack other worms: "The guy behind Netsky thinks he is doing a good thing - most likely a teenager and probably just one guy who is not part of a group of criminals."

That's what I think we do need... good viruses hunting the bad.

 

[Godataloss]

damn right I'd hire a hacker. I'd make him technical lead for the whole firewall team. I'd make him head of security.

I think if you get convicted of a computer-related crime that causes widespread damage, you should be forbidden to ever work with PC's again. It's like letting a recovering alcoholic tend your bar for you. Not to mention an implicit encouragement for a-holes to write the viri in the first place- hoping to score a job.

 

[agissi]

ya thats a very good point godataloss.. thats why we need to find a "good hacker" : )

 

[Per Hansson]

Well, if I ever wrote a virus it would be one that activated the firewall in XP, and if not XP downloaded the free Zonealarm. The it would install all windows updates on the computer and when that was done it would download the free AVG antivirus and update it and then run it to remove all viruses (including mine)

That would get rid of 95% of the SPAM and 99% of the viruses in the world IMHO

 

[agissi]

tru - nice