White-hat hackers in high demand for Internet security skills

Young fill the ranks of experts but pay is disappointing, report finds

Li Feng/China Daily

Yang Wei is so good at solving thorny online security problems, and so in demand, that he hasn't had any rest over the past two months.

Yang, 24, who works for WooYun, the largest employer of white-hat hackers in China, was on the road to Shanghai last week to provide security technology training and organize offline security salons.

"I never thought I would be exhausted as a security employee, but I find it is not an easy job," Yang said.

Despite his youth, Yang has become a key player at WooYun, sharing his security knowledge with online communities and working with companies to resolve their security issues.

Younger people like Yang form the majority of China's white-hat hackers, a type of Internet expert known for identifying security problems, but not exploiting them for personal gain.

According to a report released by GeekPwn, an online security community, and Tencent, a large Chinese technology company, more than 60 percent of white-hat hackers in China were born after 1990, and they are becoming younger.

Neither the report nor the country's cyberspace authority have released the exact number of white-hat hackers in China. But WooYun, for example, which was founded in 2010, has more than 7,200 security staff members.

Some of the young generation have talent in handling security risks and most of them have a broader understanding of the industry than their predecessors, said Guan Mochen, technical director of Kingsoft Security, a large national security provider.

They are also shouldering more pressure and facing bigger challenges, Guan said.

The report said that 84 percent of Internet users think the yearly income of security staff could be more than 100,000 yuan ($16,110), and 21 percent think they could earn more than 500,000 yuan.

But, in fact, the yearly income of 55 percent of the white-hat hackers is less than 100,000 yuan, it said.

Most security employees with just two years of working experience cannot demand a high salary in the field, Yang said.

"Even those who have mastered the key technology and can solve difficult security problems have not been paid what they deserve," Yang said.

Guo Xunping, vice-president of Bangcle, a mobile network security company, said talented security experts deserve higher incomes, but pay still trails.