Simply acquiring the knowledge and ability to hack into supposedly secure computer systems is usually seen as a negative personality trait. However, a whole new generation of hackers is moving from college to the business world – and employers are paying top dollar.
Not all unauthorized computer access is nefarious in intent. Even in the online world there’s a big different between nuisance trespassing, misdemeanor vandalism, and felony theft. Some trespassing is probably even a good thing – at least one computer security professor seems to think so. By encouraging students to write their own malware and viruses, he isn’t grading them on the damage they do, but rather the damage they’re able to prevent by discovering these network security loopholes before a real problem happens.
And according to the PayScale.com List of Best College Degrees by Salary, this is exactly the type of knowledge that employers are spending big for in their otherwise shrinking payroll budgets. Computer science and computer engineering end up in the top five for a college graduate’s starting salary.
Computer and information systems security might be new, but it isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. As soon as one problem is patched, a new one is discovered. Anyone who can indentify these issues and protect systems from misuse will be in high demand, as will programmers who know how to prevent the common loopholes and vulnerabilities.
September 9th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
Nice post! This is my first time to your site – I will def. be back!
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:59 am
like ya i agree im lesrning to be come and hacker because i think i can do the world good on it and make some big money on it but learning to hack and program and make virus has been my life long dream to do and make a living off it and help people im come back here soon
October 18th, 2008 at 5:59 am
I still think it’s a mistake to encourage students to write their own malware simply because you can be a good programmer or security expert without writing malware in the learning process. Trust me when I tell you that the temptation of the dark side is very strong. Once you get the taste of it you are going to keep doing it. Yes, eventually most of them switch sides in the end to the white hat security experts but until then … a lot of damage can be done in the process.
January 7th, 2009 at 7:18 am
good article .. thanks to the author…. keep going
May 24th, 2010 at 10:18 pm
Interesting class to take. Create virus to detect loop holes. All my professor would do was complain about the spy ware on his system.