Successful Chinese Hacking Team Is Looking For Math Nerds

A Chinese hacking team that in recent years during various competitions hacker vulnerabilities in popular software such as Adobe Flash Player, Windows 8.1, Apple Safari and Mac OS X Mavericks discovered is particularly looking for mathematical geniuses who are also "real geeks" are.

The Keen Team consists of over twenty highly talented hackers, although the leader himself does not mention that. "We call ourselves geeks, not hackers, because we do not want people to think we are invaders who want to destroy things," said the 37-year-old CEO Wang Qi in front of Vice Magazine . It is the first time that Chinese hackers do an interview in English.

Income

The Pwn2Own hacker contests deserved members of Keen Team tens of thousands of dollars. Yet the prize is not their main source of income. The hackers are hired by parties like Microsoft and Google to find vulnerabilities in software. How many employees earn Wang would not say, but he describes the prize of the Pwn2Own hacker contests as a nice pocket money.The CEO pointed Keen Team in 2011, before that he worked for Microsoft.

According to Wang, the standards Keen Team employs more than Microsoft's. "They should be as high as any computer or phone is touched by our research." In finding new hackers main focus is on math. Some of the members are winners of international math competitions. The best students from Chinese schools are also selected.

"You have real nerds need for this kind of work:. Who have no friends and no life but first we need to know your character and morality, you can not use your talents for criminal matters If you have a criminal past, we will not.. take. " Keen Team members are between 20 and 40 years old and all man. "Maybe it's because women do not like playing with hardware. And maybe they can not stand the loneliness," Wang noted.

Method

What exactly are hackers proceed will not tell the CEO, but the core consists of writing programs that automatically search for vulnerabilities, also known as fuzzing. "It's not that we endlessly looking at code and find vulnerabilities in our eyes," Lu Juhui adds. He managed to earn during the recent Pwn2Own contest with his exploits tens of thousands of dollars. Despite the automated portion of the hackers make their hours. Lu works in their own words twelve hours a day.