Google will now pay security researchers to find and report bugs in the latest versions of Google-released open-source software.
The company’s newly announced Vulnerability Reward Program focuses on Google software and repository settings.
Security vulnerabilities in Google OSS third-party dependencies are in scope for this program, with the condition that the bug reports are first sent to the owners of the vulnerable packages, so the issues are addressed upstream before informing Google of the findings.
The company encourages bug bounty hunters to focus on vulnerabilities that could lead to supply chain compromise, design issues causing product vulnerabilities, and security issues like leaked credentials, weak passwords, or insecure installations.
In February, Google also almost doubled rewards for Linux Kernel, Kubernetes, Google Kubernetes Engine, or kCTF zero-day vulnerabilities and bug exploits using unique exploitation techniques.
Since launching its first VRP in 2010, Google has rewarded over $38 million to thousands of security researchers from over 84 countries for reporting more than 13,000 bugs.
