70% of Hackers Hack to Make Money

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 13, 3:34AM EST · Published Sep 14, 11:45AM EDT

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70% of Hackers Hack to Make Money — © Thinkstock

A new study of hackers discovered why they do what they do — primarily to make money.

According to the HackerOne 2016 Bug Bounty Report:

Monetary rewards are a key driver, but financial incentives are not everything. Fifty-seven percent of hackers reported that they have participated in a programs in the last six months that do not offer bounties. Meanwhile, 72% reported they hack to earn money, 70% also said they hack for fun, 66% to be challenged, 64% to advance their careers, and 51% reported a prime motivator was to do good in the world.

Bad news for banks. Good news for the Pentagon.

The business of hacking, however, it not very lucrative. Over 51% of those who responded make less than $20,000. Another 8% make $20,000 to $34,999. Only 0.8% claim to make over $350,000

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As for age and country:

Hackers are from more than 70 countries, with the highest numbers in India (21%) followed by the United States (19%). Ninety percent of bug bounty hackers are under 34 years old.

The notion that Russia is home of dangerous hackers is somewhat true:

Bug bounty hackers surveyed are from 72 countries, while HackerOne platform data indicates we have hackers in nearly 100 countries. Twenty-one percent, the highest number, reported they are from India, with the United States coming in second at 19%, followed by Russia at 8%. Most of the remainder, each representing 2% to 3%, were scattered, living in the following countries (in descending order): Pakistan, United Kingdom, Egypt, Netherlands, Ukraine, Germany, Philippines, Morocco, France, and Turkey, among others.

Also, the industry is sexist. Some 97% of hackers are male.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.