Sony starts a PlayStation bug bounty program
Find bugs and maybe get paid.
Sony has launched a bug bounty program that anyone can participate in, and rewards for reporting critical PS4 vulnerabilities start at $50,000, Sony Senior Director of Software Engineering Geoff Norton wrote on the PlayStation blog. While Sony had a bug bounty that was previously only available to private researchers, it’s now partnering with HackerOne to open the program to “the security research community, gamers and anyone else.”
PlayStation engineers are particularly interested in reports on PlayStation 4 hardware, operating system, accessories and the PlayStation Network, according to its bug bounty page on HackerOne. A report for a low-priority issue on PlayStation 4 would start at $500, while a critical issue could net $50,000 or more. Reports for the PlayStation Network pay a little less -- low priority issues start at $100 while critical issues pay $3,000.Companies like Apple, Google and Netflix have their own public bug bounties as well, so it’s not surprising to see Sony launch something for the PlayStation brand.
According to stats on HackerOne, several people have taken advantage of the program in the last 90 days. It’s unclear how many of these figures are from when the program went public. However, it says $173,900 in bounties have been paid, 102 reports have been submitted, 88 reports have been resolved and 41 bug-finders have been thanked.
