Security News

Cloudflare, an American company focused on web infrastructure and website security, has announced the launch of a new public bug bounty program. "Today we are launching Cloudflare's paid public bug bounty program," said Rushil Shah, a Product Security Engineer at Cloudflare.

A researcher who showed Apple how its webcams can be hijacked via a universal cross-site scripting bug Safari bug has been awarded what is reportedly a record $100,500 bug bounty. The bug could be used by an adversary as part of an attack to gain full access to every website ever visited by the victim.

Apple last year fixed a new set of macOS vulnerabilities that exposed Safari browser to attack, potentially allowing malicious actors to access users' online accounts, microphone, and webcam. Security researcher Ryan Pickren, who discovered and reported the bugs to the iPhone maker, was compensated with a $100,500 bug bounty, underscoring the severity of the issues.

PolKit vulnerability can give attackers root on many Linux distrosA memory corruption vulnerability in PolKit, a component used in major Linux distributions and some Unix-like operating systems, can be easily exploited by local unprivileged users to gain full root privileges. Attackers connect rogue devices to organizations' network with stolen Office 365 credentialsAttackers are trying out a new technique to widen the reach of their phishing campaigns: by using stolen Office 365 credentials, they try to connect rogue Windows devices to the victim organizations' network by registering it with their Azure AD. Stealthy Excel malware putting organizations in crosshairs of ransomware gangsThe HP Wolf Security threat research team identified a wave of attacks utilizing Excel add-in files to spread malware, helping attackers to gain access to targets, and exposing businesses and individuals to data theft and destructive ransomware attacks.

The European Union is, once again, calling on bug hunters to delve into specific open source software and report bugs."One criteria in selecting bug bounties was their use within European public services," the European Commission Open Source Programme Office explained.

Researchers Ryan Ellis and Yuan Stevens provide a window into the working lives of hackers who participate in "Bug bounty" programs­ - programs that hire hackers to discover and report bugs or other vulnerabilities in their systems. This report illuminates the risks and insecurities for hackers as gig workers, and how bounty programs rely on vulnerable workers to fix their vulnerable systems.

The Dutch Initiative for Vulnerability Disclosure has scored $100k towards its founder's hope of a nationwide bug bounty available for anything at all. The DIVD's $100k cash injection is from infosec outfit Huntress Labs and is part of a grand vision aimed at discouraging individual researchers from dumping vulns online, the organisation's founder Victor Gevers told The Register.

The Department of Homeland Security has announced that the 'Hack DHS' program is now also open to bug bounty hunters willing to track down DHS systems impacted by Log4j vulnerabilities. The 'Hack DHS' bug bounty program was announced last week.

Meta has expanded its bug bounty program to include payouts for reports of scraping attacks on Facebook - but hold your applause. "We're tackling the industry-wide issue of scraping by expanding our bug bounty program to reward valid reports of scraping bugs and unprotected data sets," states an update from the Facebook security team.

The Department of Homeland Security has launched a new bug bounty program dubbed "Hack DHS" that allows vetted cybersecurity researchers to find and report security vulnerabilities in external DHS systems. "The Hack DHS program incentivizes highly skilled hackers to identify cybersecurity weaknesses in our systems before they can be exploited by bad actors. This program is one example of how the Department is partnering with the community to help protect our Nation's cybersecurity."