Apple offers $200,000 reward for finding security flaws

Apple plans to offer rewards of up to $200,000 (€180,690) to researchers who find critical security bugs in its products, joining dozens of firms that already offer payments for help uncovering flaws in their products.

The programme will initially be limited to about two dozen researchers who Apple will invite to help identify hard-to-uncover security bugs in five specific categories. Those researchers have been chosen from the group of experts who have previously helped Apple identify bugs, but have not been compensated for that work, the company said.

The most lucrative category, which offers rewards of up to $200,000, is for bugs in Apple’s “secure boot” firmware for preventing unauthorised programs from launching when an iOS device is powered up.

Limited scope

Apple said it decided to limit the scope of the programme at the advice of other companies that have previously launched bounty programmes. Those companies said that if they were to do it again, they would start by inviting a small list of researchers to join, then gradually open it up over time, according to Apple.

Security analyst Rich Mogull said that limiting participation would save Apple from dealing with a deluge of “low-value” bug reports. “Fully open programmes can definitely take a lot of resources to manage,” he said. Apple declined to say which firms provided advice.

Such rewards are offered by dozens of firms, including AT&T Inc, Facebook Inc, Google, Microsoft Corp, Tesla Motors Inc and Yahoo Inc. Microsoft, which has handed out $1.5 million in rewards to security researchers since it launched its programme three years ago, also offers rewards for identifying very specific types of bugs. Its two biggest payouts have been for $100,000 each.

Not all bounty programmes are as focused as the ones from Apple and Microsoft. Facebook, for example, has an open programme that offers rewards for a wide-range of vulnerabilities. It has paid out more than $4 million over the past five years, with last year's average payment at $1,780. In March, Facebook paid $10,000 to a 10-year-old boy in Finland who found a way to delete user comments from Instagram accounts. – Reuters