What keeps white hat hackers from turning to the dark side?

To protect her identity, let’s call her Dee.

Dee describes herself as an ethical hacker. She is young, attractive, speaks with an Eastern European accent and has fiery red-purple hair. She reminds me of Mila Jovovich in the sci-fi movie, The Fifth Element. We were eating lunch at the Hack-in-the-Box conference in Amsterdam.

“So what would it take to make you go black hat?” I asked. “Would you hack for a million dollars, if you knew you wouldn’t get caught?”

She responded immediately and firmly. “No. For me it is an ethical issue.”

“OK, how about a billion dollars?”

Now she paused.

Dee is one of three-dozen white hat hackers I interviewed over the last year, specifically on the subject of what keeps them on the right side.  A white hat hacker is one who uses computer security skills in service of “good.” The white hat knows how to penetrate systems, but applies that knowledge to defend networks rather than attack them.

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