What are bug bounties?

A bug bounty is a type of crowdsourcing initiative in which individuals and organizations offer rewards for finding and reporting software bugs. These rewards, or "bounties", can be in the form of monetary rewards, swag (free merchandise), public recognition, or other forms of compensation.

The concept of bug bounties has been around for centuries, with the most famous example likely being the British Admiralty's offer of a reward for the discovery of a method to determine longitude at sea in 1714. In the modern era, bug bounties have been adopted by a wide range of organizations, from small businesses to major tech companies, as a way to crowdsource security testing and to find and fix software vulnerabilities before they can be exploited.

Bug bounties are usually structured as competitions, with bug hunters competing to find and report the most bugs in a given timeframe. Some bug bounties are "ongoing" with no set end date, while others are run for a specific period of time. Many bug bounty programs specify a minimum bounty amount that will be paid out for each valid bug report, and some also offer additional rewards for particularly severe or critical vulnerabilities.

Who does bug bounties?

Organizations of all sizes and from all sectors offer bug bounties, including major tech companies such as Google, Facebook, and Microsoft, as well as smaller businesses and even individual developers. Bug bounties are particularly popular in the open source software community, where they are often used to crowdsource security testing of newly released software.

When were bug bounties introduced?

The concept of bug bounties has been around for centuries, but the modern bug bounty market is thought to have originated in the early 2000s. One of the earliest known bug bounty programs was launched by security firm iSEC Partners in 2002, offering rewards of up to $1,000 for vulnerabilities found in popular open source software projects.

In the years since, the bug bounty market has grown rapidly, with a wide range of organizations now offering bounties for security vulnerabilities. Bugcrowd, a platform that connects businesses with a community of security researchers, was launched in 2012 and now lists over 1,000 active bug bounty programs on its website.

What is the most popular platform for bug bounties?

There are a number of different platforms that facilitate bug bounty programs, but Bugcrowd is the largest and most popular. Other platforms include HackerOne, Synack, and Cobalt.

How to get into bug bounties?

Anyone can participate in bug bounties, but there is a growing community of professional bug hunters who make a living from finding and reporting vulnerabilities.

If you're interested in getting started in bug bounties, a good place to start is by signing up for a free account on Bugcrowd. From there, you can browse the available bounty programs and start submitting reports.

To increase your chances of success, it's important to understand how bug bounties work and what kind of vulnerabilities are most likely to be rewarded. There are a number of resources available online that can help you get started, including a Beginner's Guide to Bug Bounties from Bugcrowd.