Google gave hackers as big as Rs 50 crore

In 2019, Google’s world’s largest software company offered hackers around $6.5 million as an incentive to protect the internet. In the company’s Vulnerability Reward programs ‘ Vulnerability Reward Programs’ (VRPs), hackers are compensated for finding security flaws and bugs in Google products in return. Such apps range from Google Chrome to Android and the goal behind this is to make their products safe for users.

Google said in an official blog post,’ Since 2020, we’ve extended our VRPs to include other Google product areas, including Chrome, Android and apps misused. We’ve also covered popular Google Play Store apps from third parties. With this support, the app developers are told about the flaws and weaknesses found in an app, and the flaws are corrected. Since then, we’ve been giving hackers $21 million as bonuses.

Google said the researchers have so far given the highest amount of $5 lakh (about Rs 3.56 crore) for charity. In regards to incentives, Google said that for Chrome, the overall baseline amount of rewards has been raised from $5000 to $15,000. At the same time, the maximum reward amount has been increased from $15,000 to $30,000 for high quality reports. In the article, Google wrote, “The additional bonus for bugs that Fudgers got in the Chrome Fuzzer scheme has also increased to $1000.”

For Android Security Rewards, Google is now offering up to $1 million to tamper with full-chain remote code execution and Titan M Secure Elements on Pixel devices. In reality, the Titan-M chip offered in the new Pixel devices is an enterprise-grade protection processor, custom-built for Google smartphones. With this support, computer related data on the sensitive and operating system are kept secure. The Titan M has been given the’ strongest’ score of the built-in security systems among all models.