Why is Facebook rewarding, thanking hackers?

Facebook is 'rewarding' and 'thanking' hackers who break through the social networking site's firewalls, according to a report.

The hackers have taken part in Facebook's White Hat program, on one of the lesser visited pages of the social network and has a list of 109 hackers who have found ways of getting through the company's security firewalls.

According to The Sydney Morning Herald, Facebook instead of naming and shaming them, has set up the page to thank them 'on behalf of our millions of users for making a responsible disclosure'.

Anyone who finds a way of breaching the site's networks, and owns up, can earn rewards worth thousands of dollars.

Facebook has also promised not to land them in trouble with the police, if they have complied with the program's 'golden rules'.

"If you give us reasonable time to respond to your report before making any information public, and make a good faith effort to avoid privacy violations, destruction of data and interruption or degradation of our service during your research, we will not bring any lawsuit against you or ask law enforcement to investigate you," the firm said.

The paper quoted Facebook's chief security officer, Joe Sullivan, as saying that he would want the hackers to work with the company, rather than against it.

In time, he hopes the hackers will be able to find legitimate ways of expressing themselves within schools and universities.

"The lack of academic study programs for cyber-security is astonishing. If we are to succeed in defending our societies, businesses and individuals ... we need to encourage the growth of formal cyber-security studies. Cyber-security is unfortunately a constant battle" Sullivan added.