AN ethical hacker from Rishton won £1,000 after finding a vulnerability in Facebook’s website.

Jamie Woodruff, 21, discovered a privacy flaw during an event in Moscow, netting him a bounty from the social networking site — which pays ethical hackers to find weaknesses in their software.

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As well as carrying out a ‘live hack’ in front of 1,000 people attending the Startup Weekend, a 56-hour ‘hackathon’, Jamie gave a talk about cyber security.

The Bangor University student said: “I was really excited to be invited to Russia, it’s one of many international events that I will be attending this year. Even though I’m dyslexic and dyspraxic, this just goes to show that anyone can do anything when they put their mind to it.”

Despite leaving school with one GCSE, an A* in IT, Jamie has taken the computer world by storm. After working as an IT programmer, he fought for a place at university, and was accepted onto a Computer Information Systems course.

In April, he won the Best Hack category at the Southampton Hackathon. Jamie works as a certified penetration engineer, testing company websites for vulnerabilities, and donated his £1,000 winnings to HackaGlobal, a community-led non-profit organisation.

Founder of HackaGlobal and organiser of the hackathon, Alejandro Saucedo, said: “Jamie is the best and most passionate ethical hacker I have ever met.

“He has the skills and knowledge to break into anything — website, service, database, you nameit.

“And yet, he chooses not to use these skills to harm others, but instead, to help by raising awareness and disclosing vulnerabilities confidentially. With such a passion towards security, I’m certain Jamie will go very far.”