Hacker Ecosystem Survey Report 2022

Immunefi, the leading security platform for Web3 protecting over $100 billion in users' funds, releases the results of the Hacker Ecosystem Survey. With the largest community of security talent in the crypto space, Immunefi maps its landscape and shares the results received.

Key takeaways

• Money does not act as a crucial factor driving hackers' interest — most of the respondents are interested mainly in solving technical challenges. Money takes the second place, then goes career opportunities and community.
• Among other motivating factors, they also name prestige of the work, opportunity to learn the future of the internet and be ahead of the curve, the desire to protect their own funds and build something in web3.
• 60.2% consider hacking their primary job, while 39.8% do it in their free time, spending most of their day as software developers within the Web3 or security industries.
• Most whitehats have been working with crypto for almost 4 years.
• On average, they have been interested in web3 security for more than 1 year.
• Top-3 whitehats by the reported Web3 bugs submitted 65, 60 and 44 reports.

Demographics and lifestyle

• The majority of whitehat hackers (45.7%) are 20-29 years old. 9.6% of the respondents are between 13 and 19, and 1.2% – 60-69.

• Although more women are joining the Hackers' community, male whitehats still take the largest share within the industry.
• Most of the respondents follow industry resources in Twitter, Discord and Youtube. They also read the corporate blogs, Medium resources and relevant Telegram channels.

Tech

• 96.4% of whitehat hackers are primarily interested in Ethereum, with Solana in second place at 47%. Then comes Avalanche (21.7%), Cosmos (14.5%), and Tezos (3.6%).

• Among others, hackers also name Polygon, Binance Smart Chain, StarkNet, Solana, Terra, Algorand.

Download the full report here.

For questions about this study or Immunefi itself, reach out at press@immunefi.com

About Immunefi

Immunefi is the leading security platform for crypto, protecting more than $180 billion in user funds, and securing protocols across the full development lifecycle, from pre-deployment through production.