Last year Google was able to identify and fix 2,900 security issues across Android, Chrome, and Play – thanks to its Vulnerability Reward Programs (VRPs), which incentivise ethical hackers for discovering bugs. As cyberattacks shoot up, tech firms are engaging with independent researchers more than ever.
Google awarded its highest bug bounty ever worth $605,000 for a critical exploit chain report last year. The tech giant awarded a total of $12 million to the researchers taking part in VRPs in 2022, which is six times higher than what it paid in 2015. Some 703 researchers from 68 countries participated in the