Bug Bounty Program: Microsoft Rewarded $13.8M for 345 Security Researches

Microsoft Bug Bounty Program awarded $13.8M for their collaboration with over 345 security researchers from +45 countries around the world between July 01, 2023, to June 30, 2023.

Bug Bounty Programs authorize independent security experts to report bugs to a company in exchange for rewards or compensation. 

These bugs can include security exploits, vulnerabilities, process issues, hardware flaws, etc. It is also known as a vulnerability rewards program (VRP).

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Bug bounty programs allow companies to leverage the hacker community to improve their systems’ security posture over time.

Larger companies, including Apple, use bug bounty programs as a part of their security program.

These programs have access to a larger number of hackers or testers, thereby increasing the chances of finding bugs before malicious hackers attempt to exploit them.

The bounty programs are spread across cloud, platform, and Defense & Grant programs such as Microsoft Azure, Xbox, Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Power Platform, M65, and more.

Each program has its own scope, eligibility criteria, award range, and submission guidelines.

Bug Bounty Program in the Past 12 Months

• Intune Bug Bounty research invitation challenge July 2022
• New high-impact research scenarios added to the Microsoft 365 Insider Builds on Windows Bounty Program January 2023
• Microsoft Teams Preview Bug Bounty research invitation challenge January 2023
• New Bing Bug Bounty research invitation challenge March 2023
• New severity classification for Online Services added to the Microsoft 365 Bounty Program April 2023
• New scope added to the Identity Bounty Program June 2023
• Secure boot research scenarios added to Windows Insider Preview Bounty Program July 2023

“In the coming year, we will continue to improve our programs based on your feedback. We appreciate our global security research community for their ongoing partnership and for sharing their expertise to help secure millions of Microsoft customers.

We look forward to strengthening our existing relationships and building new ones”, said the Microsoft Bug Bounty Team.

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