Honestly, this happens more than you would think. If you really do think about it, what better way to protect things than to hire a hacker? It’s like they say, the best way to protect yourself from the enemy is to think like the enemy. And this theory is exactly what VeriSign is doing in terms of discovering Vista and IE7 flaws.

VeriSign’s iDefense Labs has placed an $8,000 bounty on remote code execution holes in Windows Vista and Internet Explorer 7.

The Reston, Va., security intelligence outfit threw out the monetary reward to hackers as part of a challenge program aimed at luring researchers to its controversial pay-for-flaw VCP (Vulnerability Contributor Program).

The launch of the latest hacking challenge comes less than a month after researchers at Trend Micro discovered Vista flaws being hawked on underground sites at $50,000 a pop and illustrates the growth of the market for information on software vulnerabilities.[more]

Tags: Hackers, Computer Protection