Facebook Announces Bug Bounty “Loyalty Program”

As the world’s largest social media platform, Facebook has had more than its fair share of security and privacy issues. However, the company’s bug bounty program has been a rare bright spot, offering to pay independent researchers to discover flaws in the company’s security. And this week, Facebook announced that it will be taking the program a step further, adding a loyalty component that will reward researchers with a five-tier bonus structure.

The program, called “Hacker Plus,” will analyze researchers’ scores, signals and submitted bug reports to determine what level of the program to place them in. After that, they will be eligible to “access more soon-to-be-released products and features they can stress-test, and exclusive invites to our annual events.” And according to Facebook, this is just the start of where the program is headed.

“Since its inception in 2011, our bug bounty program has offered a series of initiatives to recognize the contributions of the talented community of researchers who help us keep Facebook safe,” Facebook security engineering manager Dan Gurfinkel wrote in a blog post announcing the feature. “Each year we’ve focused on innovating and expanding the program’s scope and rewards structure. This is only just the beginning for Hacker Plus — we’re excited to grow the loyalty program over time.”

 

While this may seem like a small change in the grand scheme of things, any additional incentives that encourage experts to help protect Facebook users are a good thing.




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