The company will pay between $25,000 and $200,000 for exploits
After years of reluctance to pay researchers for exploits, Apple has given in and is ready to hand out up to US$200,000 for critical vulnerabilities found in the latest version of iOS and the newest iPhones.
Apple announced the program Thursday at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas. It starts in September, and unlike bounty programs run by other large technology companies it will be invite only.
The program will start with a few dozen researchers hand-picked by Apple, though any outsider who submits a flaw that qualifies can receive a reward and be invited to join the program, said Ivan Krstić, the head of Apple Security Engineering and Architecture.
“It’s not meant to be an exclusive club,” he said.
Apple said it was willing to double the payouts for researchers who donate their reward to a charity.
Rich Mogull, CEO of information security firm Securosis, noted that bug bounty programs can have downsides, and said it’s not something Apple necessarily had to do. But he said it’s a good start and something Apple can benefit from.
Some companies “don’t really want to get into a bidding war with governments and well-funded criminal organizations, some of which are willing to potentially pay up to a million dollars for certain exploits,” Mogull said in a blog post.
Public bug bounty programs can also produce a lot of noise in the form of low-quality reports that don’t necessarily lead to bug fixes, but that still consume engineering resources to investigate, he said.
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SOURCE: PC World
Lucian Constantin is an IDG News Service correspondent. He writes about information security, privacy, and data protection.
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