Would You Hire a Former Black Hat?

Mark Zenson asks: "Understanding the mindset of a hacker and the likes of one may be useful to counter security attacks, but apparently companies still object to hiring former, or even reformed, black hats." The article asks this question of several executives in the industry and for various reasons, many of them were skeptical to the idea of hiring such people. Would you give black hats a second chance if you were in their position?

Comments

Re:It All Depends on Their Maturity

[Amoeba]

What's unfortunate for black hats is that there is a wealth of solid programmers from America, India and Russia (if they can make it here) who are more than willing to do anything. On top of that, they have no criminal background. So even if a Blackhat is more qualified, they're probably just dismissed since a thousand other people are eager for the work and meet the basic qualifications. Unfortunate, but something to think about if you want to delve into the dark side of computers and networks.

eldavojohn, I was agreeing with everything you said up until this point. I'm the moderator for the SecurityFocus pentration-testing mail list and the CTO for a security firm specializing in pen-testing. At the level of skill I'm talking about there is no "thousand other people... and meet the basic qualifications" but a very limited number. That fact alone allows for some wiggle room for companies looking for candidates with a rare high-level skill set. Would I hire someone with a blackhat background? Sure, if they met the criteria you outlined above and played at the level I'm looking for because there aren't that many candidates out there looking for work.

Of course, while I would hope the decision would be a sound one I'd remain wary as it *is* risky... but people can change or grow up. Anyone who has been in the security industry for a good length of time has some skeletons in their closet. I was not always a lily-white scion of responsibility *cough*... but I grew up. Had the mistakes of my youth precluded me from working in the industry I might have turned out to be a very well-dressed, sensitive, thoughtful, extremely hireable burger flipper.