Facebook says it paid over $1mln to helpful hackers

PanARMENIAN.Net - Facebook announced Friday, Aug 2 amid the Def Con hacker conference here in Las Vegas that it paid more than $1 million during the past two years to 329 helpful hackers – known as “white hats” – who found vulnerabilities in its code and shared them with the company. Some of them have already earned more than $100,000. Two of them have been hired full-time, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Facebook is taking a particularly public approach to dealing with this reality. Members of its security team are spending this weekend in Las Vegas for Def Con, an annual hacker conference known for its mischievous atmosphere. Its goal is to friend more hackers.

The company, among other things held a private party Friday night to reach out to the hacking community.

Facebook didn’t give many details on the types of problems it fixed through the program. In a written statement, it said the program caught a loophole that could allow a power hungry user to take over a Facebook group and block other members.

In January, Facebook was hacked by a sophisticated hacking team after some of its employees visited a compromised website. No user data was breached, the company said at the time. The hackers have not been named yet.