Close
  • Latest News
  • Cybersecurity
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Mobile
  • Networking
  • Storage
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
Read Down
Sign in
Close
Welcome!Log into your account
Forgot your password?
Read Down
Password recovery
Recover your password
Close
Search
Menu
Search
  • Latest News
  • Cybersecurity
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Mobile
  • Networking
  • Storage
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
More
    Home Cybersecurity
    • Cybersecurity

    Facebook Awards Security Researchers $880,000 in 2017 Bug Bounties

    By
    Sean Michael Kerner
    -
    January 16, 2018
    Share
    Facebook
    Twitter
    Linkedin
      Facebook Bug Bounty

      Facebook is hardly a small organization, with large teams of engineers and security professionals on staff. Yet even Facebook has found that it can profit from expertise outside of the company, which is why the social networking giant has continued to benefit from its bug bounty program.

      In 2017, Facebook paid out $880,000 to security researchers as part of its bug bounty program. The average reward payout in 2017 was $1,900, up from $1,675 in 2016.

      Facebook launched its bug bounty program in 2011 in an effort to improve security. The company has paid out a total of $6.3 million in bug bounties since the program began, with varying amounts in each of the last six years.

      Back in 2014, Facebook reported that it paid out $1.3 million in awards to 321 researchers around the world. For 2017, Facebook has not publicly disclosed the precise number of researchers awarded bounties, though it did provide clarity on how many vulnerability reports it received.

      Last year, Facebook received more than 12,000 vulnerability reports from security researchers, of which approximately 400 ended up being considered valid bugs. Facebook has a published guide for researchers on how to submit a quality report to help improve the number of valid reports. 

      “Moving forward we want to encourage valid reports, and so we’re revamping our ‘Thanks’ page so that submission validity will be considered in the ordering of this Thanks page,” Jack Whitton, Facebook security engineer, told eWEEK.

      The Facebook bug bounty program applies to multiple Facebook properties, including the facebook.com site, Instagram, WhatsApp, internet.org and Oculus, as well Facebook’s open-source projects. Among the items that Facebook considers to be out-of-scope for the bug bounty program are spam and social engineering techniques, as well as denial-of-service (DoS) attacks.

      “We determine bounty amounts based on a variety of factors, including (but not limited to) impact, ease of exploitation, and quality of the report,” Facebook’s bug bounty terms page states. “If we pay a bounty, the minimum reward is $500. Note that extremely low-risk issues may not qualify for a bounty at all.”

      Bug bounties have become increasingly common, with many companies choosing to host a program on a third-party platform. In July 2017, Bugcrowd reported that the average bug bounty payout across its customer base was $451. In June 2017, HackerOne reported that across its customers the most commonly reported flaw was Cross Site Scripting (XSS). 

      Looking at Facebook’s vulnerability reports, among the commonly reported bugs are flaws targeting user timelines.

      “In 2017, we saw multiple submissions regarding posting polls on a page’s timeline,” Whitton said. “One of these let you delete any image—the researcher found that when attaching an image to the poll, we weren’t checking you were the owner of the image.”

      Whitton added that when a poll was deleted, Facebook was also deleting any attached contents, so that there aren’t any dangling objects, therefore deleting another user’s image.

      Looking forward, Whitton said Facebook will continue to encourage valid bug reports by thanking and rewarding researchers, as well as working on improving the process of handling reports.

      “We’re aiming to invest more resources into getting more timely responses and payments to researchers,” Whitton said.

      Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at eWEEK and InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.

      Avatar
      Sean Michael Kerner
      Sean Michael Kerner is an Internet consultant, strategist, and contributor to several leading IT business web sites.

      MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

      Android

      Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro: Durability for Tough...

      Chris Preimesberger - December 5, 2020 0
      Have you ever dropped your phone, winced and felt the pain as it hit the sidewalk? Either the screen splintered like a windshield being...
      Read more
      Cloud

      Why Data Security Will Face Even Harsher...

      Chris Preimesberger - December 1, 2020 0
      Who would know more about details of the hacking process than an actual former career hacker? And who wants to understand all they can...
      Read more
      Cybersecurity

      How Veritas Is Shining a Light Into...

      eWEEK EDITORS - September 25, 2020 0
      Protecting data has always been one of the most important tasks in all of IT, yet as more companies become data companies at the...
      Read more
      Big Data and Analytics

      How NVIDIA A100 Station Brings Data Center...

      Zeus Kerravala - November 18, 2020 0
      There’s little debate that graphics processor unit manufacturer NVIDIA is the de facto standard when it comes to providing silicon to power machine learning...
      Read more
      Apple

      Why iPhone 12 Pro Makes Sense for...

      Wayne Rash - November 26, 2020 0
      If you’ve been watching the Apple commercials for the past three weeks, you already know what the company thinks will happen if you buy...
      Read more
      eWeek


      Contact Us | About | Sitemap

      Facebook
      Linkedin
      RSS
      Twitter
      Youtube

      Property of TechnologyAdvice.
      Terms of Service | Privacy Notice | Advertise | California - Do Not Sell My Information

      © 2021 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved

      Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.

      ×