Facebook pays $1 million to bug hunters; India second on the list

Facebook’s Bug Bounty Program seems to be doing pretty well for not just the social networking website but also the security researchers who have

Nishtha Kanal|Aug 03, 2013, 13:17:35 IST

Facebook’s Bug Bounty Program seems to be doing pretty well for not just the social networking website but also the security researchers who have diligently been contributing to the program. Facebook has revealed that it has paid out more than $1 million in rewards to security researchers, with India ranking number two in the list of bounty recipients.

The social networking giant in a post announced that it has paid over $1 million to security researchers as well as collaborated with researchers from around the world to undertake pest control activities on Facebook’s website, products and infrastructure. Facebook has paid out bounties to 329 people across the world.

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The bounty hunters include professional researchers, part-timers and even students. The post reveals that the youngest recipient to date is a 13-year-old. As far as recipient countries go, the US is followed closely by India, UK, Turkey and Germany. Cover

Bugs go splat!

The successful program has seen bounty amounts of $100,000 being handed out to individual hunters. The largest cash prize awarded till date has been $20,000. The prize money was given to an Application Security Researcher named Jack Whitton, who discovered a bug that let you take over anyone’s account on the site without user interaction. In fact, Facebook has ended up hiring two recipients of bounties as full-timers on the security team, as part of the program.

“This early progress is really encouraging, in no small part because programs like these can have a significant impact on our ability to keep Facebook secure,” wrote Colin Greene, Security Engineer with Facebook. “After all, no matter how much we invest in security – and we invest a lot – we'll never have all the world's smartest people on our team and we'll never be able to think of all the different ways a system as complex as ours might be vulnerable. Our Bug Bounty program allows us to harness the talent and perspective of people from all kinds of backgrounds, from all around the world.”

If you think you could contribute to Facebook’s Bug Bounty Program, head on to the social network’s White Hat page to learn more.

By Nishtha Kanal

Intrigued by all things social, Nishtha will invariably tweet about you. When not tweeting or writing about the next viral video, you will hear her proclaiming her love to Metallica, James Hetfield, Opeth, Akerfeldt and all bands that go 'growl'. She also obsesses about ACP Pradyuman and South Park and you will always find her moving around with a book. Her focus is on all the happening stuff in the tech domain, and she won't hesitate to take a shot at some of the oddball devices that make their way to our labs.