Search engine giant Google is taking an unconventional approach in dealing with ethical hackers. This is after a Google executive on Tuesday told various companies to recognize and thank friendly hackers instead of treating them harshly.
Speaking at the InfoSecurity conference in London earlier this week, Google's Cyber Security Chief Eran Feigenbaum in an NBC News report said, "It used to be that if you told an organization that you broke into their environment, they would typically respond with a legal cease and desist letter. They would stop you, put a gag order on you..."
He said that Google has taken a different approach to hackers who have breached Google's secured networks. "We've take a different approach, where we actually thank people," Feigenbaum said.
This unique approach is viewed as Google's attempt to establish a venue where companies and friendly hackers could work collaboratively and look for a common ground especially on cybersecurity issues.
It can be recalled that last year, Google has reportedly earmarked $1.5 million, which was given to hackers who found security holes and software-related flaws in the Google software that were unknown to the company via Zero-Day Vulnerability, a day where hackers exploit the identified flaws of a software and fix it by releasing an updated patch.
This pushed Google to create a team composed of elite hackers, which was tasked to find and fix the security holes in the software developed by the company. Google's Feigenbaum stressed that it is equally important to recognize the efforts made by ethical hackers.
"Encouraging them to do the right thing by treating them with respect, paying them, giving them acknowledgement is important," Feigenbaum said as quoted in the same website. He also emphasized that filing legal complaints against hackers who breached a company's system was a 'wrong approach.'"
Other companies that used the same approach of welcoming "friendly hackers" were Facebook, Microsoft and United Airlines. A Fortune report noted that these technological companies have high confidence that network breaches could be avoided if a third-party entity could identify flaws, with the friendly hackers eventually being rewarded financially.
Accordingly, both network and data breaches have caused a damaging blow to the companies with a cost amounting to $2.1 trillion worldwide by 2019, and such loss is gradually increasing based on a report by Juniper Research, as stated by NBC News.
