Facebook has shelled out more than $40,000 (£24,487) in bounties to sharp-eyed tech-savvy users, just three weeks after offering cash rewards to people who can expose security bugs on the social networking site.
According to a blog post by Facebook chief security officer Joe Sullivan, researchers in 16 different countries have collected the bounties, which can reach as high as $5,000 for the best reports. One person has already received a total of $7,000 for flagging six different issues.
“We feel great knowing that we’ve launched another strong effort to help provide a secure experience on Facebook,” Sullivan wrote. “A bug bounty program is a great way to engage with the security research community, and an even better way to improve security across a complex technological environment.”
When Facebook announced the scheme last month, it joined Mozilla and Google in rewarding researchers who privately report vulnerabilities that could jeopardise the privacy or security of their users. To date, Google has paid more than $300,000 (£183,651) for bugs found on its various Web properties.
Last month, Microsoft offered a $250,000 reward leading to the conviction of the operators of the recently dismantled Rustock botnet, and earlier this month it promised more than $250,000 to researchers who develop new security defences to protect Windows users against attacks that exploit software bugs.
Related stories
$250k bounty for spamming group
