Business Models for Discovering Security Vulnerabilities
One company sells them to the vendors:
The founder of a small Moscow security company, Gleg, Legerov scrutinizes computer code in commonly used software for programming bugs, which attackers can use to break into computer systems, and sends his findings to a few dozen corporate customers around the world. Each customer pays more than $10,000 for information it can use to plug the hidden holes in its computers and stay ahead of criminal hackers.
iDefensebuys them:
This month, iDefense, a Virginia- based subsidiary of the technology company VeriSign, began offering an $8,000 bounty to the first six researchers to find holes in Vista or the newest version of Internet Explorer, and up to $4,000 more for code that take can advantage of the weaknesses. Like Gleg, iDefense, will sell information about those vulnerabilities to companies and government agencies for an undisclosed amount, though iDefense makes it a practice to alert vendors like Microsoft first.
So do criminals:
But the iDefense rewards are low compared to bounties offered on the black market. In December, the Japanese antivirus company TrendMicro found a Vista vulnerability being offered by an anonymous hacker on a Romanian Web forum for $50,000.”
There’s a lot of FUD in this article, but also some good stuff.
Nobby Nuts • February 5, 2007 12:55 PM
Heh. Started off interestingly but the ending’s a bit of a cliffhanger! One company … what??