Apple’s bug bounty program is probably one of the most lucrative. The Cupertino-based company has confirmed it is offering between $100,000 and $1 million (Rs 7 crore) to hackers who can point out vulnerabilities in iPhone and iMacs.
With this hike in reward money, it is opening up the program to all potential hackers. Earlier Apple’s bug bounty program was by invite only to certain researchers. According to a report in Forbes, Apple is launching a bug bounty program for Macs as well as for Watch OS and Apple TV OS.
Researchers have the potential to win an entire $1 million if they can hack into the kernel of an iPhone, with zero clicks needed by the iPhone owner. The most common hack is through malware, which often requires the user to click a link at least.
Apple also said another $500,000 would be given to researchers who can find a network hack, which does not require any user interaction. It is also increasing by 50 percent the amount it hands out researchers who can find weaknesses in software before it’s released.
Apple considers its phone and computer OS to be among the safest and least vulnerable to attacks compared to rivals like Android. The company is increasing its rewards to prevent hackers from selling the information to governments for large sums of money.
This revised bug bounty program was made at a Black Hat conference in Las Vegas, where Apple’s Ivan Krstic, head of security engineering, was speaking on iOS security. Apple announced its first-ever bug bounty program for $200,000 a few days ago at the event.
Microsoft, Google and Facebook also have bug-bounty programs in place for years.
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