British Expert Secures Aussie Visa via Ethical Hack

A British cybersecurity expert has secured Australia's highly selective National Innovation visa after ethically hacking into a government website to showcase his skills, uncovering a critical vulnerability in the process.

Jacob Riggs, 36, from Bexley in southeast London, identified the flaw in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade's systems in under two hours while working from his home in July. As global director of information security for a major software-as-a-service provider, Riggs was midway through a seven-month application for the 858 visa, which grants permanent residency to individuals with exceptional achievements in priority sectors such as cybersecurity. The program, previously known as the Global Talent visa, has an approval rate below 1 percent, with only about 85 grants issued from over 9,000 expressions of interest since its launch.

Riggs approached the test as a standard security assessment, applying professional methods to probe multiple entry points. The vulnerability he found met critical severity standards under the Common Vulnerability Scoring System, an industry benchmark. Under the department's formal Vulnerability Disclosure Policy, which allows...