Given all the fuss over a recently exposed DNS flaw that has the potential wreck all kinds of havoc across the globe, you might easily conclude that we're not making a whole lot of progress when it comes to security.

But Amrit Williams, the CTO of BigFix, a provider of managed security services, says we should take heart from the way the whole DNS flaw issue is being handled. Williams says that the hackers that find these holes are starting to show a marked increase in maturity when it comes to working with the vendor community to solve these problems.

In the old days, hackers would have simply reveled in disclosing the vulnerability and then left it up to the vendors to clean up the mess. But the people that discovered the DNS vulnerability instead chose to work with the vendor community to help make sure there was a patch in place to help solve the problem at the time the vulnerability was disclosed. That could mean that the hacker community in general is starting to mature to a level where, rather than just trying to embarrass vendors for the sake of glory, many of them are now working towards a greater good.

Of course, a lot them are now getting paid to work with vendors before disclosing vulnerabilities, so the whole economic model of hacking is also changing. That may be costing vendors more money, but no matter how you look at it that's probably a good thing. While most hackers are not exploiting a vulnerability before it is disclosed, closing the window between when the security hole is disclosed and when the first patch is available is in everybody's best interests.

As time goes on, we can only hope that a combination of economic motivation coupled with a new found sense of civic responsibility is going to permanently take hold in a hacker community that seems to be getting more responsible by the day.