Google announces new bug bounty platform

Since the advent of smartphones in the late 2000s, there has been a steady increase in people availing services online. The Covid-19-induced pandemic in early 2020 further fast-tracked the digital lifestyle across all age groups. While young adults attend virtual office meetings, schools are imparting online classes to children and in their free time, people, besides binging on multimedia content on OTT (Over-The-Top) applications, are ordering more food and exploring information on the internet than ever before.

However, this has also attracted cybercriminals to prey on naive users. While users have been told to be wary of venturing into unknown websites, it is also imperative for companies such as Google, Apple, Microsoft, and others who offer mobile/PC platforms - Android, iOS, and Windows, to improve the security to thwart the activities of the bad actors.

Most companies do that but most of the time, the effort comes short. Now, Google, to mark the 10th anniversary of the Vulnerability Rewards Programme (VRP), has announced a new bug bounty platform-- bughunters.google.com.

"This new site brings all of our VRPs (Google, Android, Abuse, Chrome, and Play) closer together and provides a single intake form that makes it easier for bug hunters to submit issues," said Jan Keller, Technical Program Manager, Google VRP.

Also, the new platform has spruced up with a game-like leader board chart to encourage healthy competition among the bug hunters. It will have per-country leaderboards, awards/badges for certain bugs, and more.

So far, 2022 independent and hired security researchers in around 84 countries have discovered more than 11,055 bugs in Google and have cashed in rewards up to $29,357,516.

With the new bug hunter platform, cybersecurity experts will be eligible to get a better bounty for their efforts and amateurs cab also learn new skills with updated tools from Google.

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