Do you have coding or programming skills and you want to make money online fast as a hacker? If YES, here are 9 legitimate ways on how to make money hacking. Are you good at hacking? Then you can make legal money from it. A lot hackers have been able to get paid by websites like Google, Yahoo, PayPal, and a whole lot more; even teenage hackers. The business of making money as a very legal and responsible hacker is ever booming due to the massive amount of cyber-attacks that these websites witness on a regular basis.
There are basically two types of hackers; the black hat hackers and the white hat hackers. Black hat hackers are into illegal activities such as hacking bank accounts, CCTV cameras, jamming securities and even hacking Facebook accounts; the white hat hackers focus on legal activities. They try to play by the rules and make anything and everything they do legit. Here are some ways by which you can legally make money from hacking;
9 Legitimate Ways on How to Make Money Hacking Online
1. The bug bounty business
This is one avenue by which a lot of hackers make money. What this business involves is snooping through top websites like Google, Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo et al., in order to find bugs that are harmful to the website and can be taken advantage of by black hat hackers.
As soon as they discover these loopholes, they report them to the websites and they get paid. You can think of it as someone climbing your roof to see if he can find any hole, and once he does, you pay him for letting you know so as to prevent rain from dripping in.
Initially, Google had its Bug Bounty at $2.7million awarded once a year. It has however changed this in the first quarter of 2017, hence the contest will now run year round. The total prize pool of money is left unspecified. What this means is that the money will keep coming once you find something.
The days are long gone when bug bounty programs only received informal rewards like a thank you note, free t-shirt, an online shout out, or sometimes, a few hundred dollars. Thanks to startups like Crowdcurity, Bugcrowd, Synack, and HackerOne, companies can now launch their bug bounties and this has made the pay increase steadily. Some other companies that pay for bugs include;
- BitGo: $100 to $1,000
- Dropbox: $216 to $4,913
- Facebook: $500 plus
- FastMail: $100 to $5,000
- Pinterest: $50 to $1,500
- Magento: $100 to $10,000
- Microsoft: $500 to $100,000
- Paypal: $100 to $10,000
- Spotify: $250 plus
- Stripe: $500 plus
- Tumblr: $200 to $1,000
- Western Union: $100 to $5,000
2. Government funding
It is not only individuals and companies that are scared of being hacked, governments are also scared of it as well. In order to combat hacking of their website and servers, they usually fund hackers to keep watch and ensure that they are not hacked.
Also, Governments around the world sometimes get hackers to track down other hackers or to perform other tasks. These tasks are mostly classified under national security, and they may include stealing military data or even industrial and economic espionage. Have you heard that Russia allegedly hacked the US elections?
3. Working on a company payroll
Hackers are also employed by various companies and organizations in order to carry out various functions such as ensuring the security of their site. They are tasked with checking to see if there are any loopholes as well as to find out if the website has experienced any form of hacking.
Some companies may sometimes want to get it sinister by wanting you to steal around and get some stuff from competitors such as prototypes, reports, or something else.
4. Writing security software
Granted, programmers and hackers are not the same, yet a hacker can write securities that would prevent malicious hackers from succeeding in their nefarious endeavors. Such securities could be for specific companies or for general use, and it could be on contract or one can just decide to write and sell.
5. Teaching security and ethical hacking
If you are a skilled hacker, why not pass this knowledge out to others for a fee? As a proficient white hat hacker, you can teach others the business of ethical and responsible hacking. The only down side to this is that you may not know who will use the knowledge of what you have thought them for malicious purposes.
6. Hacking blog
A blog is an individual website that is updated on a regular basis. If you love to hack and write, then you can open up a blog where you can share with your readers your knowledge of hacking. There are many different ways by which a blog can be monetized so you should not stick to just one.
You can make money through blogging by putting up adverts on your blog, selling your own courses and books, affiliate marketing and of course Google AdSense. The more traffic you have, the more money you’ll make. Even if you post to your blog every day but only have ten people looking at it, you won’t make much money.
7. Podcast
A podcast is like a personal radio show where you talk about specific topics. You can create a podcast where you can discuss hacking. Before you think about monetizing your podcast, you have to make sure that it is filled with rich and engaging content. You can monetize your podcast through sponsorship, affiliate marketing or even sale of your own product.
8. YouTube channel
This is one of the most versatile ideas that you can easily execute from the comfort of your home. When well-managed, a YouTube channel can be just as or even more profitable than a traditional blog. For starters, you don’t require a domain nor do you need to spend money on hosting your channel. You also have a large audience and a readymade platform for you to work with.
Furthermore, AdSense approval through YouTube is easy and what’s more, you can start earning from the very first day you create your account and make a post. You can just go to YouTube, upload a video and you can get started from there.
You can create a YouTube channel that is based on hacking and how to become a hacker and earn a lot of money from it. Every day, over 5 billion videos are watched on YouTube and your video can be one of them. You can get paid through by enabling Google AdSense on your channel, through sponsored videos and through sale of your services or the services of others on YouTube.