The services reported an increase in demand for "white" hackers

The number of vacancies for pentesters or so-called "white" hackers has increased, although more often such specialists are not sought through open sources, recruitment services told Izvestia.

Since the beginning of the year, vacancies for "white" hackers, whose tasks include finding vulnerabilities in the company's systems, have increased by 20% more than in the same period of 2024, the recruitment service reported. hh.ru .

Such specialists are most often sought by IT companies and companies that deal with financial technologies.

"The median salary offered in 2025 was 225 thousand rubles, whereas a year ago it was 220 thousand rubles. It is important to take into account that most often in vacancies for pentesters, employers do not specify a specific level of remuneration and are ready to discuss salary with the candidate," they said.

The minimum wage for pentesters in St. Petersburg starts from 80 thousand rubles, and in Moscow - from 100 thousand rubles, follows from the data of the Superjob service. Salaries for such specialists increased by an average of 8% over the year.

Such vacancies are rare on open platforms, said Kirill Pshenichnykh, Director of the Office Professions category at Avito Jobs.

"This is due to the fact that the selection of pentesters is usually conducted on a point—by—point basis - employers are looking for candidates with a specific set of competencies and often resort to recommendations, professional communities and industry events," he explained.

Among the specific requirements for pentesters are knowledge of attack methods, security system circumventions, testing techniques, experience in finding vulnerabilities and working with appropriate scanning tools.

Read more in the exclusive Izvestia article:

Hacking watch: Russian companies have increased demand for full-time "white" hackers