Zero-Days: The Billion-Dollar Arms Market You’ve Probably Never Heard Of
By: Geneva Bass
The market for zero-days began with $10 and a pair of crocodile cowboy boots. In 2002, a Texan named John P. Watters bought the cybersecurity company iDefence for an Alexander Hamilton and the determination to restore profitability after months of hemorrhaging millions.
A zero-day is a computer-software vulnerability. It’s a bug, an undiscovered mistake in code. Its name originates from the fact that once a zero-day becomes known, the code developer has exactly zero days to fix it before it can be exploited.
Under the direction of Watters in 2003, iDefence built its competitive advantage on alerting its clients to vulnerabilities it discovered by paying hackers zero-day bounties. IDefence became the first company to publicly offer bounties for zero-days....
