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Teen Author of Twitter Worm Gets Hired for Hacking Skills

by Kaiser Hwang on April 19, 2009 at 05:21 PM

Oh, the pains of being popular. Now that micro-blogging service Twitter has officially saturated the mainstream, it was only a matter of time before it became the target of hackers. Case in point: Last week, a non-malicious attack infected users' profiles, sending tweets without permission. After fessing up to the attack, 17-year-old Mikeyy Mooney claimed he created the worm for three basic reasons: boredom, to alert the developers behind Twitter of the vulnerability, and to get his name out in the public.

Well, it looks as if the stunt paid off, because Mooney has already been offered (and accepted) a job at exqSoft Solutions, a web applications developer. The gig was one of several job offers that came to Mooney after the Twitter fiasco. Travis Rowland, exqSoft CEO and the man who hired Mooney, suggested to ABC News that the hack was more of a service than anything else, alerting Twitter to a vulnerability in its system.




If this sounds strange to you, you may be surprised to learn that a number of hackers have been hired for their specialized skills by various companies over the years. Just last month, a teenager named Owen Thor Walker was hired by a telecom company as a security consultant after he helped a crime gang skim millions of dollars from bank accounts. Perhaps the most famous hacker in recent times, Kevin Mitnik, also acts as a security consultant through his own firm.

There's still a bit of controversy over hiring hackers, but each hacker, company, and circumstance is unique, and if the shoe fits, wear it. Get the full details on the story and some insightful quotes from various security consultants at at ABC News. [From: ABC News]

Tags: hack, hackers, hacking, jobs, microblogging, security, top, twitter, workplace

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