[Larwee]

That same thought entered my mind. I wondered if Microsoft made an offer to pay the hackers a good sum of money if they could hack Vista, since it is worth something to Microsoft and that might give more encouragement to the hackers.

Then I remembered how anonymous virus writers often would write a virus just for their own personal satisfaction. They proved to themselves that they could do it. Some also wanted to impress their peers by writing a virus that would spread more and/or do more damage than the ones written by them.

The same could be true for these hackers. They get the personal satisfaction of being able to do what they were challenged to do. They can also impress their peers. Some might actually do it because they feel they are helping the public by saving them from some potential damage by finding these flaws before it is released to the public. There is also the chance that a hacker could really impress some company that would want to hire them for a large sum of money to help them with their security issues. For some it just might be nothing more than having a little fun.

Most likely the hackers have a variety of reasons to be interested. The reasons covered in my speculation probably covers the most common reasons.