iViz to hire 300 ethical hackers in 2 years

NEW DELHI: US-based iViz will hire about 300 ethical hackers in the next two years for its facility in Bangalore as it looks to tap into the multi-billion dollar global opportunity for cyber security firms.

Currently, the cloud-based security testing firm has about 60 people at its facility.

"There is a huge opportunity in the security space and there aren't enough professionals. We, ourselves, are looking at hiring 200-300 ethical hackers over the next two years," iViz co-founder and CEO Bikash Barai told PTI.

These will be a mix of campus and lateral hires, he said. Founded in 2006 by former IITians, Barai and Nilanjan De (CTO), iViZ Security offers penetration testing or ethical hacking through the cloud on a software-as-a- service model.

The IDG Ventures funded-company was acquired by Cigital Inc in October last year. It has about 500 customers and is based in Bangalore.

"While there is a lot of discussion around security, there are not many experienced professionals. We also train the people that we hire to ensure that they can service our clients as this is a highly specialised vertical," he said.

According to reports, India will need five lakh security professionals by 2018 to support its fast growing Internet economy.

These jobs will come up across industries like financial services, telcos, utility sectors, power, oil and gas and the government sectors.

As per information reported to and tracked by the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), a total of 32,323 websites were hacked by various hacker groups in 2014 while the number in 2013 was 28,481. In 2012, 27,605 websites were hacked while 21,699 websites were hacked in 2011.