Google Awards $12 Million in Bug Bounties, Boosting Cybersecurity Efforts

Summary:

In 2023, Google awarded nearly $12 million to 660 researchers through its various vulnerability reward programs (VRPs). This brings its total payouts since 2010 to over $65 million. Google revamped its reward structure, offering up to $300,000 for critical mobile app vulnerabilities and $250,000 for Chrome bugs. The company also launched new initiatives like the Cloud VRP and AI bug bounty program, with an increase in high-severity bug reports leading to higher payouts.

Comments:

The Vulnerability Reward Program (VRP) allows security researchers to submit bugs to Google and get paid for their findings. These bug bounty programs have been around for a while and serve as a bridge between software companies and security researchers.

You don’t need five years of experience to become a bug bounty researcher, but identifying bugs isn’t always easy. The rewards for finding critical vulnerabilities are increasing, with opportunities in areas like cloud, applications, and SaaS.

If you're studying computer science, especially in areas like operating systems, cybersecurity, or reverse engineering, bug bounty work can be a great fit. There are no strict prerequisites to participate in bug bounty programs.

Platforms like HackerOne offer access to a variety of organizations, and Jason Haddock’s Bug Hunter methodology is a popular approach for navigating the bug bounty landscape.

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Reduce the risk of a security incident by working with the world’s largest community of trusted ethical hackers. HackerOne offers bug bounty, VDP, security assessments, attack surface management, and pentest solutions.

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Google’s bug bounty program underscores the importance of crowdsourced cybersecurity and incentivizing researchers to find vulnerabilities. The increase in critical-severity bug reports and higher rewards shows a growing focus on securing both AI and cloud environments.

Suggested Guidelines:

1. Increase Bug Bounty Investment: Invest more in bug bounty programs to leverage external expertise in discovering vulnerabilities.
2. Focus on High-Severity Bugs: Prioritize fixing critical vulnerabilities, especially in mobile apps and cloud infrastructure.
3. Expand Researcher Collaboration: Continue collaborating with the global cybersecurity community to stay ahead of emerging threats.
4. Enhance Security Patching: Implement faster patching protocols for high-impact vulnerabilities found through bug bounties.

Tags:

#Google #BugBounty #Cybersecurity #VulnerabilityRewardProgram #CloudSecurity #AI #MobileSecurity #ChromeSecurity #EthicalHacking

Google paid $12 million in bug bounties last year to security researchers

Google paid almost $12 million in bug bounty rewards to 660 security researchers who reported security bugs through the company’s Vulnerability Reward Program (VRP) in 2024.

BleepingComputerSergiu Gatlan