14 DAY TRIAL // The search giant Google hired Michal Zalewski, a famous hacker who's well-known for multiple major security holes discovered in the applications. In 2007, the 26-year-old hacker was more focused on the web-browsers, finding several flaws in Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. According to ZDNet, "in February, Zalewski paid special attention to Mozilla Firefox. On an almost-daily basis, he published proof-of-concept exploits for zero-day bugs in the open-source and forced Mozilla security engineers to constantly work on creating patches."
The same source sustained that Michal Zalewski confirmed his new job but refused to provide more details about his work at the Googleplex. However, it seems that he will work as an Information Security Engineer, having the role of adding a little bit more security to the Google branded products.
This new Google hiring might have an important impact over the Internet companies because the Polish guy was continuously releasing browser zero-day vulnerabilities and published them on the Internet. This way, the security of the applications will be somehow improved because other malicious users will find the holes more difficult than before. If you didn't know, Michal Zalewski found famous flaws such as buffer overflow in SendMail, weaknesses in TCP/IP ISNs and code execution hole in IE's JPG rendering.
It might sound a little bit weird, but it's extremely important for Google to hire a famous hacker. First of all, the Mountain View company will avoid successful exploitation of the vulnerabilities concerning the Google solutions since one of the main hackers will not publish new flaws anymore. Secondly, the search giant will surely improve the security of its products because Michal Zalewski will help the Google team patch hidden holes. Also, Google might develop some new software solutions with the help of the Polish hacker and make them more secure than the ones offered by the competitors.