A group of Spanish entrepreneurs have today launched Zerod, the world's first hacker marketplace for businesses. The service offers businesses of any size a way to find and hire security testing services for their tech infrastructure. There are currently around 150 security specialists from 30 countries available at launch, and the site boasts that over 1500 vulnerabilities have been dealt with so far.
The move reflects the growing demand from businesses for safe and professional security testing. Ethical hacking received a big boost in 2022 when the US Justice Department declared that "good faith" security research would no longer be charged under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. As a result, this form of enhanced pen-testing has seen a surge in popularity, as the rise of ransomware and foreign agent attacks increased exponentially. Current estimates suggest that the market could be worth over $10 billion by 2028.
