[gjones77]

Take a deep breath...

Many of those “hackers” work for global security firms, it’s their job to find exploits.

And as for the students, it’s basically the same thing, they work to find and expose exploits to force the company that made the software to tighten it’s security.

It’s people like them that help to find and fix security holes, they’re referred to as “White Hat Hackers”, they’re the good guys.

[JimRed]

Deep breath taken- thanks!

8^)

[EasySt]

"It’s people like them that help to find and fix security holes, they’re referred to as “White Hat Hackers”, they’re the good guys."


Not only that, but the makers of the products don't hesitate to trumpet any success they may have fending off the solicited attacks on their products at these types of competitions. (Not that they are very often successful at that. These kinds of puzzles tend to attract some pretty serious talent.)