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AT&T Sponsors Zero-Day Hacking Contest For Kids

Posted by timothy on from the also-let's-talk-in-a-few-years dept.

yahoi writes "AT&T has teamed up with an 11-year-old hacker and DefCon Kids to host a hacking contest during the second annual conference that runs in conjunction with the adult Def Con hacker show later this month in Las Vegas. The kid who finds the most zero-day bugs in mobile apps wins $1,000 and an IPad, courtesy of DefCon Kids. The contest was inspired by the mini-hacker's discovery last year of a whole new class of mobile app vulnerabilities."

3 of 43 comments (clear)

  1. Thank goodness! by FreedomOfThought · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Glad to see they are encouraging white hat hacking. I hope they remain effective. Thousand dollars seems a little low. Surely they can do better, and put it towards their future education needs.

    1. Re:Thank goodness! by __aaeihw9960 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Exactly - you catch the little fellas and ladies while they're young, that way they don't turn into black-hats later. This is called investing in the future, and there needs to be shitloads more of it. I don't care if they don't catch anything major, just investing in them and showing that older folks value their insight goes a long way, ask any teacher.

  2. That $1000 will not cover the full 2 year data pla by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That $1000 will not cover the full 2 year data plan cost that comes with that Ipad.