Cryptocurrency is becoming a revolution, not only because of the support of enthusiasts and individuals who love the principle of having a monetary instrument free from government control. It is also due to the hard work and dedication of its unsung heroes, the ethical hackers who continue to hunt for bugs in the code that runs the blockchain. It is really great to see people that are willing to do the hard labor in order to secure the technology that will soon become the basis of our financial world.
People who maintain the Monero and Stellar cryptocurrency projects paid ethical hackers $7,400 for their services in fixing the flaws in its code. Augur, ICON, Omise, Robinhood and Crypto.com have their respective bounty hunting programs which reward whitehat hackers who help them harden the security of their platforms. The reward money given by Augur is very generous, a medium risk vulnerability fix is a whopping $2,500 each. Crypto.com’s reward is not far behind at $2,350. Some bounty rewards remain to be undisclosed, like the ones given by Robinhood, a stock trading app with crypto support.
Their bounty hunting program is not yet fully matured, as there were instances that a single person is paid the reward for one bug twice, indicating that the program needs further refinement. This will encourage more people in joining the program, as more security vulnerabilities are identified and fixed, the safer the public can use cryptocurrencies.
This is not the first time that private companies paid external ethical hackers with rewards for discovering bugs in their code. Giant tech companies such as Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, and others have regular bounty hunter programs that pay deserving individuals generous reward money. It is in their advantage as they no longer need to maintain a huge Quality Assurance team that by nature will have a difficulty of detecting the security bugs compared to an outsider checking the software from a fresh perspective.
Related Resources:
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Why Mixing Your Cryptocurrency Is Still The Best Shot At Privacy