Google is offering $1 million in security research grants next year

In a world where consumers are trusting more and more of their personal data to the cloud, security of that data is a growing concern. As a company with a major interest in learning about its customers through the data they share, Google has a vested interest in keeping its products secure -- as such, the company is today giving an update on its grant program for independent security researchers. The company has just announced that in 2016, it'll dedicate $1 million to fund a variety of different programs aimed at keeping Google's products secure.

Google first started offering security research grants this year and confirmed that the $1 million figure is more than it has offered before. The vulnerability research grant program is intended to incentivize researchers who look into the security of Google's products, even if they don't find any vulnerabilities. That's a bit different than the typical "bug bounty" program, where companies will pay researchers who find and report security flaws. Google still does that, too, offering up to $20,000 to anyone who finds a "qualifying issue." Overall, the company has a large security rewards program to incentivize people to keep pushing its products to find any flaws the internal team might have missed.