When looking at hackers we often see the image of criminals stealing information and selling it on the underground market or some foreign criminals. But that is not the full story. Today we see hackers that fall into three major categories. Black hats or the criminal elements listed above. Grey hats which walk the line between criminal and legitimate and white hats that are essentially the good guys of the three.
As technological demand for security experts grows some of the black and grey hats are taking the plunge into becoming white hats. The financial incentives and no risk make this a great choice for many former criminal hackers. Some countries like Romania in Europe have so many hackers that they have turned into legitimate business enterprises that it produces up to 6% of the whole country's gross domestic product.
Companies are proactively looking for some of these former criminals because of their security knowledge. The skills they bring to the table help companies harden their security or they can provide services to the intelligence communities for which they may not have the right staff to do it. Security consulting businesses are growing at a mind boggling rates. Some of them are even being employed as a cyber defense shield against military cyber attacks on other nations. I expect to see this trend develop further in the future as the global IOT market grows and the need for cyber security experts reaches critical levels.
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