The 13-year-old hacker who protects Microsoft

Cybersecurity is extremely important for any technology company. It is even more critical for companies like Microsoft, which is responsible not only for managing its infrastructure, but also for the security of its over 1 billion customers.

The Redmond-based company has a dedicated team, the MSRC (Microsoft Security Response Team), that works with researchers around the world to identify security vulnerabilities in products it manufactures. It then works with relevant teams to fix those issues.

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Interestingly, MSRC partnered with a 13-year-old, referred to as “Dylan,” a few years ago. They worked with him to patch vulnerabilities in various products.

In terms of background, Dylan has been working with technical tools and programming languages ​​since a very young age. Starting from scratch, the teenager eventually became familiar with HTML and other programming languages ​​and began analyzing the source code of educational platforms.

Dylan's first foray into the world of professional cybersecurity was when his school disabled students' ability to create conversations in Microsoft Teams during the COVID-19 pandemic.

After nine months of research and development, along with trial and error, Dylan discovered a security flaw that allowed him to take control of any Teams group. The teenager immediately reported the vulnerability to Microsoft, which had to update the terms and conditions of the Bug Bounty Program to allow people as young as 13 to participate.

Since then, Dylan has been working directly with MSRC. The ethical hacker also reported a security flaw in the Authenticator Broker service.

He is known for his apt communication skills and for not remaining silent when he disagrees with MSRC's initial assessments.

The prodigy, who was then the youngest researcher at MSRC, is now a high school student. He filed 20 vulnerability reports last summer alone, which is impressive considering he had only filed six total before that.

You can read more about Dylan's journey here.

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