Articles about Bug Bounty

Bug bounty programs are a popular way for tech companies to track down problems with their products without having to spend large sums of money on dedicated research teams. Microsoft is one of the big names with such a program, and it has just announced that it is increasing the payouts it makes.

As well as offering people more money for finding issues with its products, Microsoft also says that it will pay people faster.

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Now in its fifth year, the GitHub Security Bug Bounty has been updated to offer larger rewards to those who find bugs. At the same time, the scope of the program is being expanded and protections for researchers have been added through new Legal Safe Harbor terms.

As well as expanding the program to cover any of its "first-party services", GitHub has effectively removed any upper limit on the size of reward pay-outs for critical bugs.

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A disgruntled security researcher has revealed a one-click exploit that takes advantage of a macOS vulnerability to reveal all of the passwords stored in a Mac's keychain.

Linus Henze developed an exploit tool called KeySteal that uses a 0-day bug to extract keychain passwords on macOS Mojave and older. He stresses that neither root access nor administrator privileges are required, and no password prompts are generated by the tool. Henze is not going to help Apple to fix the problem because the company does not offer a bug bounty program for macOS.

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Starting in January, the European Commission is going to fund bug bounty programs for a number of open source projects that are used by members of the EU. The initiative is part of the third edition of the Free and Open Source Software Audit (FOSSA) project, which aims to ensure the integrity and reliability of the internet and other infrastructure.

In all, the Commission will fund 15 bug bounty programs, with rewards ranging from €17,000 ($19,400) to €90,000 ($103,000).

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With at least 87 million Facebook users affected by the data abuse by Cambridge Analytica, the social network is now on a mission to clean up its image. After rolling out tools, issuing notifications, and testifying in front of Congress, Facebook is launching a new bounty program that rewards people who report instances of data abuse.

The Data Abuse Bounty is a new program that offers from $500 to $40,000, and it aims to clamp down on the misuse of data by app developers. Launched just before Mark Zuckerberg's testimonies this week, it's a clear attempt by Facebook to curry favor.

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As much as we'd like to think otherwise, no software is free of security issues. That's why it's important for tech companies to play an active role in finding and fixing as many bugs as possible before they're exploited. Implementing a bug bounty program can be very effective, as the product is exposed to various testing mindsets and approaches which can uncover some nasty surprises.

Netflix, which has over 100 million users across the globe, today introduces its first bug bounty program that's open to the public, with rewards that can reach $15,000 for the most-valuable findings that security researchers report.

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Microsoft has launched a bug bounty program that will reward anyone who finds the next Meltdown or Spectre vulnerability. Known as speculative execution side channel vulnerabilities, Microsoft is willing to reward anyone who reports bugs that could cause problems like earlier in the year.

The rewards on offer range from $5,000 up to $250,000 depending on the severity of the vulnerability, and the bounty program runs until the end of 2018. Microsoft says that it will operate under the principles of coordinated vulnerability disclosure.

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Intel has updated its bug bounty program, offering up to $250,000 to anyone identifying vulnerabilities in its hardware and software. The key update here is that the program is now open to everyone through the HackerOne platform -- it was previously open to selected security researchers on an invite-only basis.

The move comes in the wake of the Meltdown and Spectre chip vulnerability revelations, and it's clearly an attempt by Intel to not only ramp up its security, but to be seen doing so. The company says it wants to create "a process whereby the security research community can inform us, directly and in a timely fashion, about potential exploits that its members discover."

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Google's bug-tracking database -- the Google Issue Tracker which is known as the Buganizer System within the company itself -- had its own security holes which left it vulnerable to hackers.

Researcher Alex Birsan was able to exploit vulnerabilities so he could gain wider access to Google's database than he should have been able to. The trick was a simple matter of fooling the system into letting him register a @google.com email address that would ordinarily be reserved for Google employees.

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Google has announced that it is teaming up with HackerOne to bring a bug bounty program to the Play Store. Seeking to weed out problems with Android apps, the Google Play Security Reward Program pays out $1,000 for reported issues that meet certain criteria.

The program is a little different to other bug bounty programs as Google will pay out for problems that are found in third party apps, not just its own. At the moment there are a very small number of apps that are taking part, but Google is inviting developers to opt their apps into the program.

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To improve the security of their products, many high profile tech companies have introduced bug bounty programs. The rewards can be pretty substantial, depending on the severity of the bug and the quality of the report, as Samsung's first such initiative focused on its mobile devices proves.

Called the Mobile Security Rewards Program, Samsung's bug bounty program will pay researchers up to $200,000 for finding security vulnerabilities in its mobile devices and related software.

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Microsoft is one of many technology companies to run bounty programs giving people the opportunity to earn a bundle of cash for finding bugs and security issues with software. Now the software giant has launched the Windows Bounty Program, offering rewards of up to $250,000.

Of course, the starting point for rewards is much lower -- just $500, but still better than a kick in the teeth. This new bounty program has four key areas of focus in addition to the Windows Insider program: Microsoft Hyper-V, Mitigation bypass and Bounty for defense, Windows Defender Application Guard, and Microsoft Edge.

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Microsoft introduced a bug bounty program for Edge last August. Originally intended as a temporary thing, it will now live on as the software giant reports that it has lead to major improvements in its browser's security.

As is the case with bug bounty programs, part of the appeal for security researchers is the financial side. In this case, Microsoft says that it has paid over $200,000 in bounties in since it kicked off.

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Security researchers can make a lot of money by reporting bugs to software and hardware vendors. Microsoft, for instance, pays up to $15,000 for vulnerabilities in Office Insider, while Intel, through its first bug bounty program, takes things up a notch with a top reward of $30,000.

Intel's first bug bounty program was announced on HackerOne, and targets firmware, software and hardware products. Hardware vulnerabilities have the highest top reward, followed by firmware and then software.

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Microsoft wants to make Office more secure, so it has announced a bug bounty program for Office Insiders to catch vulnerabilities before shipping a public release.

The bug bounty program targets the Windows version of Office on the Slow ring and features rewards of up to $15,000, but for "certain submissions" -- presumably highly-critical security holes -- the software giant says that researchers can expected to be paid more.

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