News Avecho tempts fate with £10,000 hacking challenge

It's open season at Avecho - And if you score a direct hit, you get a £10,000 'prize'. The script kiddies will have a field day...

This from ZDNet:

Fancy winning £10,000? An antivirus firm is lining itself up for a potential smack in the chops by inviting Internet users to break its product.

Avecho has thrown down the gauntlet by offering £10,000 to anyone who can sneak a virus past its GlassWall product, and has even opened the challenge to its developers.

"Lots of people have already tried to do this," said Mark Elliott, vice-president of international marketing for Avecho. "I think this is something we are able to do. The only condition is that people must be willing for us to publicise their failure as well as their success."

In order to take part, contestants need to sign up for an Avecho email account and then send a virus to that address, or try and receive one from it. If the virus gets through, the contestant will win £10,000, said Elliott.

More here

 

The old saying "no matter how smart you think you are, there is always someone smarter than yourself." comes to mind. They WILL be paying out 10k...

 

They're giving the *developers* a chance to get something past it?

mmmmkay...

- H.

 

Here's the thing I see... No one gives a crap about the developer's install of the product. They'll have windows configured properly as well. A REAL virus is designed to weed out the weaker beings online. They attack flaws in microsoft's software, usually. So, IMO, this contest is worthless, and unless that machine is running their software with no other OS, they will pay out their 10k.

 

I Think the challenge is to get an e-mail containing a virus through their free e-mail system, not test their system.

 

*is tempted to send them windows 95*