Microsoft doubles bug bounty reward, white hats can now earn $100,000

By Jonathan Keane August 10, 2015

microsoft doubles bug bounty reward white hats can now earn 100000 chromawise — ChromaWise/Shutterstock

A couple of days on from the official release of Windows 10, Microsoft has raised the rewards for some of its bug bounty programs, which it hopes will help keep its systems more secure.

Most notably Microsoft has doubled the maximum fees for the Bounty for Defense from $50,000 to $100,000. It has also extended its Online Services Bug Bounty to include authentication vulnerabilities, where discoveries are now eligible for a double payment.

Microsoft said the changes came in response to feedback from the security research community. The company made the announcement at last week’s Black Hat cybersecurity conference in Las Vegas, which it called “part of the rigorous security programs at Microsoft.”

Many tech and software companies run bug bounty programs to entice ethical hackers to disclose any bugs or vulnerabilities in their software to the company in exchange for a cash reward, rather than go public with the information.

Oftentimes hackers have to meet strict criteria in order to claim their prize, like agreeing to not disclose any information about the bug before telling the company or rigorously proving the dangers of their findings if they want to get paid.

Microsoft has been steadily expanding its bug bounties over the years. In April of this year, it introduced programs covering Microsoft Azure and a bounty for the preview of Microsoft Edge ahead of its release.

Bug bounty rewards can vary wildly from company to company. Yahoo for example has smaller rewards going for around $100, while their maximum rewards can hit $20,000. United Airlines offers flight miles to researchers. Mozilla meanwhile pays up to $10,000 for “novel” vulnerabilities and exploits depending on how rare or dangerous the bug is.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Jonathan is a freelance technology journalist living in Dublin, Ireland. He's previously written for publications and sites…

Computing

The HP Victus gaming PC with RTX 3060 has a $550 discount

The HP Victus 15L gaming PC in white.

Gamers don't need to spend more than $1,000 if they want to buy a new gaming PC because there are affordable options like the HP Victus 15L gaming desktop. From its original price of $1,400, you can get it for just $850 as HP has applied a $550 discount on this machine. However, you shouldn't delay your purchase because there's no assurance that the gaming PC will still be 39% off tomorrow. If you want to make sure that you get it for less than $1,000, you're going to have to complete the transaction for it within the day.

Why you should buy the HP Victus 15L gaming desktop
You shouldn't expect the HP Victus 15L gaming desktop to match the performance of the top-of-the-line models of the best gaming PCs, but it's surprisingly powerful for its cost. Inside it are the 13th-generation Intel Core i7 processor and the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card, with 16GB of RAM that our guide on how much RAM do you need says is the best place to start for gaming. It's enough to play today's best PC games without any issues, and it may even be capable of running the upcoming PC games of the next few years if you're willing to dial down the settings for the more demanding titles.

Computing

This 17-inch HP laptop is on sale for just $300 — but hurry!

The HP 17t-cn300 17.3-inch laptop against a white background.

If you want to buy a laptop with a relatively large screen, the good news is that you don't have to break the bank with your purchase because you can get the HP Laptop 17t for a very affordable $300. It's on sale from HP with a $200 discount on its original price of $500, but there's no telling how much time is remaining before this offer expires. We don't think it will stay available for long because laptop deals like this almost always get sold out quickly, so complete the transaction as soon as possible to make sure that you don't miss out on the savings.

Why you should buy the HP Laptop 17t
With the 17.3-inch display of the HP Laptop 17t, you'll have a lot of screen real estate to work on your projects and watch streaming shows. It's pretty affordable for a laptop with this large screen, which offers HD+ resolution for sharp details and vibrant colors. However, despite its big display, the HP Laptop 17t maintains portability because it's only 0.78 of an inch thick, which makes it easy to slide into your bag when you're on the go, and it won't be too heavy to carry around because it only weighs about 4.6 pounds.

Computing

What to do if your Intel CPU keeps crashing

Pins on Core i9-12900K.

Despite being among the best processors you can buy, some high-end Intel CPUs have faced a wave of instability over the past few months. Intel is investigating the problem, but the company and its motherboard partners have already worked toward some temporary fixes to improve stability on high-end Intel CPUs -- even if it comes at a performance cost.

Before getting into the fixes, keep in mind that they are temporary. Intel will release a statement on the instability soon, likely with more direct guidance on what affected users should do. In addition, the scope of the problem isn't clear -- if you're not experiencing issues, you shouldn't have anything to worry about.
Who's affected