Hacking for good, not evil

Earlier this week, US security researchers hacked into one of Google's Australian offices but they insist they were trying to help, not hurt.

California-based Cylance security hacked into the building management system (BMS) of Google's Sydney Wharf 7 office, allowing them to take over the building's air conditioning, and their research also found vulnerabilities in hundreds of other buildings in Australia including hospitals, banks and government. The researchers say they have built up a database of 25,000 buildings around the world that are at risk - hundreds of which are in Australia.

Cylance researchers Billy Rios and Terry McCorkle  assure the company's whose cyber security flaws have been exposed, that they are simply provoding a service.

"We're not actively out there trying to exploit them," McCorkle said, "We just want to make people aware that they're vulnerable or potentially vulnerable."

Cylance aren't the only "white hat" hackers who are thwarting criminal attacks before they can be launched, CORE Security, is a Boston-based operation who try to predict what cybercriminals will do next and put measures in place for companies or government agencies to stop them.

CORE chief executive Mark Hatton believes what his company does is like a company health check.

"It's sort of like an MRI that helps you see inside a body. We are looking inside systems for potential problems and where an attack could happen," Hatton said. "It's a controlled way of looking at what a hacker would do."

Hiring white hat hackers might be as tough a process as recruiting an international security operative. When asked if he has ever considered flipping a bad guy into a white-hat hacker for CORE, he doesn't think he would take the risk.

"No," Hatton says. "As soon as someone has emotionally agreed to apply their skills in an unlawful way then that is not someone we would trust being on the good-guy side. What I've learned is that you've got to hire people that are really good at what they do — and then you've got to let them do it, I have to trust that they are choosing the right path."

So owners of large company's can sleep easy, e-Batman is out there #keeping the streets clean.