Govt wants them to hack into their systems to set right lacunae

Wanted: Hackers
Criteria: Should be ethical.

That's what the government is looking for hackers. It feels that they will help find the loopholes in the system and protect them from bad hackers. A competition to find them will be held on Saturday.

The department of Information Technology and Biotechnology along with Acharya Institute of Technology (AIT) is conducting the competition at the college campus in Hesaraghatta. "We need ethical hackers who can hack into our systems and point out the loopholes. We can then work towards mending the systems and protecting them from real hackers," said Iqbal Ahmed, immediate past president of Computer Society of India and Director (Technical), AIT. The government and the institute have held workshops throughout the state leading to this final competition. "Several talks were held with the IT department and the cyber police. We came to the conclusion that a lot of information is on the net and needs to be protected. Now, there are organised criminals who make money only through internet frauds.

So we held workshops all over the state for college students," he said.

Already 60 teams have registered for the competition. The teams have two to four members. "We will show them virtual pictures and they will have to find defects," he said.