Why Your Company Needs To Hack Itself

Although the year has just started, 2012 is turning out to be an annus horribilis for cyberattacks. Shortly after the New Year, 24 million Zappos customers found out that hackers had accessed their personal information. Popular web hosting service DreamHost found out in mid-January that their users' FTP passwords were stolen. After Megaupload was shut down in late January, thousands of Anonymous users took down the websites of (among others), the Justice Department, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) by using DDoS scripts.

On January 22, WhiteHat Security founder Jeremiah Grossman gave a TEDx speech in Maui about why companies and government agencies need to “hack themselves first.” According to Grossman, the most effective way for enterprise users to protect their systems is by inviting hackers to attack away... and then having the hackers discreetly share their discoveries with the companies. Grossman spoke with Fast Company about how this would work.