23 years old Harinder, a bug bounty-hunter who identifies security loopholes in company websites has been recognised once again ,this time by UK Government.
Harinder is an ethical hacker who helps firms find gaps in their systems that may be exploited by malicious hackers. He has helped find more than 300 loopholes for organisations including Google, Flipkart and UN, Singapore Govt ,UK Govt. Harinder said it was an “incredible honour” to receive UK Govt award ,right after Singapore Govt’s award.
Ethical hacking is when a hacker is paid by a company to break into their websites to discover bugs and security flaws. Some ethical hackers are making a lot of money and this industry is growing rapidly. Most of the people doing this type of bug hunting are young “, said Harinder, who recently pointed out a critical bug from the UK government’s website, in return for which the UK government awarded him the country’s prestigious Medal .
Harinder helped more than 300 companies, including Google, BMW, Porsche, etc., including the Singapore government website by finding bugs last year .
Harinder said that according to industry estimates, two-thirds of hackers are in the age group of 18 to 29 years. Big companies give huge prize money to these people for telling any flaw. They find web code flaws before any cyber criminal can. Harinder himself, along with a full-time cyber security job in a multinational company, keeps looking for flaws or critical bugs in the world’s top companies.
It is very difficult to find bugs that were not detected before. That’s why they get thousands of dollars for this work. In a way, this is a big incentive for ethical hackers.
Talking about Harinder, he had a lot of interest in hacking since school time and used to find flaws in the website day and night, although he is self learnt , but if someone wants to come in the profession of hacker, then passion is very important and have helped more then 500 students to get started in cyber security.
