Being a hacker doesn’t always mean that you’re a bad guy. In fact, United Airlines is rewarding the people who hacked into their system 1 million free miles. The airline company offers “bug bounties” that reward good-natured hackers before malicious hackers can infiltrate their company.
United started the unusual initiative in May just weeks before technical problems grounded its entire fleet twice. One incident locked the airline out of its reservations system, preventing customers from checking in, and another zapped functionality of the software United uses to dispatch its flight plan.
“We believe that this program will further bolster our security and allow us to continue to provide excellent service,” United said on its website.
Other companies like Facebook, Google, and Yahoo! all offer cash incentives to hackers that can detect flaws in their security systems, but the most recent winner of United’s bounty, Jordan Wiens, points out that not many companies outside of the technology industry offer bug bounties.
The equator of Earth is 24,901 miles, which means that Wiens and the other winner of United’s bounty can theoretically fly around the Earth over 40 times. In reality, if Weins were to fly coach, he could make 40 round trips in the U.S. and Canada, 16 round trips to Europe, and 12 round trips to Australia. If he decides to fly first class that’s 20 round trips in the U.S. and Canada, eight round trips to Europe, seven round trips to Australia.
But there are critics of programs that offer incentives to hackers finding flaws in a company’s security system. These types of programs offer the company a cheap way to increase their security essentially eliminating the need for private security firms.
Chris Petersen, CTO and co-founder of LogRhythm Inc. a security intelligence company, said bug bounties are growing in popularity, as companies race to shut all the backdoors into their systems before the black-hat hackers find them.
“It’s very specialized and there aren’t that many people (who) are very good at it,” Petersen told The New York Times. “Those that are, are very expensive to hire.”
View the original content and more from this author here: http://ift.tt/1OlT2Ny
from hacker samurai http://ift.tt/1VdvWh1
via IFTTT
No comments:
Post a Comment