Are computer hackers better at computers than people working In IT for example?

[No Name]

It's not always fair to say hackers who are able to break into your network means they're better than you, because after all they're not facing the same technical or even financial challenges.

From a bad guy's perspective, sometimes all you need is one vulnerability to penetrate the system, and this ranges from remote service exploitation to social engineering. And unlike ethical hacking, your attacks have no limites, so you can also consider a man-in-the-middle attack and target a system that the network admin simply doesn't have the power to manage because it's outside his authority, such as DNS servers -- this was mentioned in the 2008 black hat conference:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-SSVxsH7vw

The worst thing is sometimes new exploits release too quickly to the public, and your IT guy doesn't even have enough time to react, script kiddies are already playing with it. This happens, and I will explain.

Now, the IT guy's perspective. Instead of dealing with one vulnerability, you deal with them all everyday. In case you didn't know, there's a HUGE delay between discovering a vulnerability, to actually come up with a patch by the vendor, and then deploy that patch by your IT guy after making sure it won't mess with your settings, etc -- this process takes months, sometimes years if nobody wants to share that vulnerability. Not to mention you'll always get some smart-*ss employees who want to tunnel their way out to play on-line games, chatrooms, or check myspace or facebook every 10 minutes... these activities increase security risks (and lots of incidents happen due to inside jobs). Or, you have a dumb intern who has high privileges to some system, and he/she believes whatever happens just install "the best" firewall and antivirus.

Even if you have the technical knowledge to fight hackers, well guess what, security costs money, too. And if you have an ignorant boss who decides to cut budget on your company's security (and they often do), then knowledge unfortunately won't be enough. Or, your budget is limited, so sadly even if you're able to identify a hole, you can only half-close it.

I have seen some certified hackers who don't even have the necessary or proper knowledge to administer a server or network, I know there are also admins who know very little about some black-hat techniques. I've also seen some IT guys who are so technical they really should speak at gatherings like Defcon or black-hat. So who's better? Well, it really depends on the person and the circumstances given.