Israeli 'good guy' hacker feted by PayPal

In the hacking world, it takes one to know one. For many corporations, the best defense against hackers is to actually hire a hacker and pay him or her to break into their sites or databases and expose weaknesses in a benign manner. There aren’t that many “white hat” hackers out there, and one of the most in-demand of these hackers is Israeli Shai Rod.

Now, add another feather to Rod’s cap. He was named one of the top ten hackers who have helped PayPal make its site more secure, with his name tacked onto PayPal’s virtual Wall of Fame.

This isn’t Rod’s first award as a “pentester” — a hacker who conducts a penetration test against a site, emulating a computer system in order to determine its vulnerabilities. He was also a “top pick” at PayPal in the first quarter of 2013 as well. In 2012, Rod was included in the Google Hall of Fame, the Twitter Security White Hats Awards Page, the Dropbox Special Thanks Page, Adobe Security Acknowledgements, and others. For each of these companies, Rod tested for vulnerabilities that “black hat” hackers — the bad guys — could take advantage of.