Hey there, security researchers! Exciting news for you – Google has just upped the ante on bug bounty rewards, now offering up to a whopping $151,000 through its Vulnerability Reward Program.
Google’s Latest Bug Bounty Boost
If you’re part of the bug hunting community, you’ll be thrilled to hear that Google recently announced a five-fold increase in rewards for its bug bounty program. This means more opportunities to earn big bucks for your security findings.
Google’s Vulnerability Rewards Program has always been a lucrative option for researchers, but with the constant improvements in Google products, finding bugs has become more challenging. To acknowledge the hard work and dedication of researchers, Google decided to amp up the rewards.
Under the new reward structure, you could earn up to $101,010 for reporting a high-severity remote code execution vulnerability. And if your report is exceptional, Google will apply a 1.5x modifier, boosting the maximum reward to $151,515.
But that’s not all – Google is also introducing a 1.5x modifier for all bug reports, meaning you could potentially earn even higher payouts for outstanding reports. Check out some examples below:
| Example Vulnerability | New Reward | Old Reward |
| A logic flaw leading to an accounts.google.com @gmail.com account takeover | ($50,000 * 1.5) = $75,000 | $13,337 |
| XSS on idx.google.com | ($10,000 * 1.5) = $15,000 | $3,133.70 |
| A logic flaw disclosing PII on home.nest.com (a tier 1 acquisition domain) | ($2,500 * 1.5) = $3,750 | $500 |
While the 1.5x modifier is reserved for exceptional-quality reports, Google will also reward good-quality and low-quality reports with a 1x and 0.5x increase, respectively.
Google has also revamped its application tiers for the bug bounty program, ensuring transparency for all researchers. If you’re interested, you can find more details here.
We’d love to hear your thoughts on this exciting update, so feel free to share in the comments below!
