Google Puts Bounty on Security Flaws

Google is offering cash rewards to people who discover security bugs on its Web properties such as YouTube and Blogger.

Finding a flaw in a Google service and reporting it to the company could net a researcher between $500 and $3,133.70, depending on the severity and nature of the bug, according to a Nov. 1 post on Google’s Online Security Blog. An option is also set up for people to donate their rewards to charity.

The types of flaws Google is targeting include cross-site scripting bugs and authentication bypass vulnerabilities that allow a hacker access to another user’s sensitive information without entering a password.

“As well as enabling us to thank regular contributors in a new way, we hope our new program will attract new researchers and the types of reports that help make our users safer ,” the blog post reads.

The new bounty program follows Google’s January launch of the Chromium open source project, which offers monetary rewards to people who find bugs in the open-source codebase behind Google’s Chrome Web browser.

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