An engineer named Vaishnav NK from Kerala’s Kannur district has earned a place in Google’s Hall of Fame for pointing out a minor flaw with Google. Vaishnav found that content could be posted via backdoors using false identification information, which would allow people to post such information and content without authorization.
The 23-year-old has studied BTech in Puducherry and was interested in ethical hacking from the time he was in college. He used to spend hours in front of the computer to learn about hacking.
“Since thousands of people try hard to get into the revered space by finding out the holes in the system, it is considered a big achievement and it gives me immense satisfaction,”
Vaishnav said in a recent interview.
About Google’s hall of fame
Google’s Hall of Fame is dedicated to those individuals who have contributed to making Google products safer. It features over 1,000 people from all across the world.
Other Indian candidates to feature
In July 2017, Athul Jayaram, an engineering student from Noida’s Amity University was awarded this honour for discovering a bug in Google’s password system.
In December 2017, Sreenath Sasikumar, another engineer from Kerala, was also awarded a position on Google’s Hall of Fame after discovering and identifying a major security flaw in the system.
Also Read: This 17 Year Old Found A Critical Security Hole In Google & Got Reward Of Rs 24 Lakhs
How the position is determined
The position of every individual on the Hall of fame is based on the seriousness of the problem that the candidate has solved. Vaishnav currently is listed on page 7, though he was earlier on page 3 of the Hall of Fame.
Other than Google, Microsoft and Facebook also conduct similar recognition programs such as ‘Bug Bounty’ which rewards people who point out flaws in security and encourage them to keep all applications secure.
Indian names on these lists show that our engineers do have the potential to rule the tech world but they don’t get recognition from local companies.
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