Google handed out $3 mn in bug bounties last year, $9 mn since the program's inception

Since its launch in 2010, Google has handed out over $9 million in rewards to bug hunters participating in the Google Vulnerability Reward Program. $3 million of that amount was handed out just last year.The program pays out rewards to researchers who find bugs and vulnerabilities in Google software, including Chrome and Android. In fact, of the $3 million given out last year, $1 million each was handed out for bugs found in Android and Chrome.“The amounts we award vary, but our message to researchers does not; each one represents a sincere ‘thank you’,” said Google in a blog post.[caption id="attachment_360316" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Image: Google[/caption]Last year, Chrome opened up the Chrome Fuzzers Program to the public, allowing anyone to ‘fuzz test’ Chrome at scale “across thousands of cores of Google hardware”.Fuzz testing is a technique for testing software for coding errors and bugs by feeding it a huge amount of random data. The goal is to make the system crash and then figure out what caused the crash.Google also claims to have increased its presence at hacking events around the world like pwn2own and Pwnfest, which helped Google fix a number of bugs.In its blog post, Google also mentions the story of Jasminder Pal Singh, who uses the money from rewards program to fund his startup. Another story mentions Jon Sawyer, who donated all his reward money to his local Special Olympics Team.