14 DAY TRIAL // Some people waste their IT knowledge on cyber-crime. They have great minds, but their intentions are wrong; fortunately, employers can see through this. Sometimes, when hackers are really good, even though they cause a lot of damage, some firms decide it would be a smart thing to hire them in the IT department. This is the case of Chinese virus creator Li Jun. This is a good idea, considering that no one knows better how a hacker thinks than one who has been a hacker, but it's not so great if you're to consider he has created a virus and has been doing some nasty stuff on the web.
"It's important that the IT community does not send out a message that writing viruses or worms is cool, or a fast track into employment," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos. "Li Jun broke the law and infected innocent people's computers and websites, causing financial damage. To reward his criminal act, infamy and bad behavior with a job offer in the IT industry seems frankly perverted."
Remember the piece of news about Fujacks (the worm that when affecting your system would turn any .exe icon into a Panda burning joss sticks)? Well, Li Jun, the original creator of the virus (that has been recently sentenced to 4 years in jail) has been offered a job from a company that had been infected by Fujacks, as Sophos informs. Jushu Technology (from Hangzhou City) offered Li Jun a salary of about $130.000 to become their technology director, as seen on the same site.
This is certainly not the first (and I doubt it will be the last) case of a hacker getting hired by a company. These people are offered jobs, not because they can create viruses and are good at hacking, but because they've proven to have a lot of brains. The virus creators that wrote the Anna Kournikova worm, Netsky and Sasser have all been hired by IT firms. Some people may think that's outrageous. To be honest, it's a good thing to give these guys a well paid job, because it's bound to keep them out of the virus creating business, and us out of trouble.