14 DAY TRIAL // Mozilla Foundation has offered the sum of 2,500 USD to a bug hunter whose task was to discover the vulnerabilities of the open-source browser Firefox. The German specialist was rewarded with 500 USD for each of the five security breaches discovered.
The "Bug Bounty program" rewarding system led to the immediate increase of interest and the number of those actively involved in the development of the browser. In this way, the program is better monitored and appreciated, and the end-user benefits from a safer solution.
The National Infrastructure Coordination Centre has warned at the beginning of last month about the bugs related to the mechanism which allows applications to exchange details about the browser's interface. In certain cases, the "Home" button can be modified so that it automatically downloads malicious programs.
The Mozilla Foundation is one of the few organizations that offer financial compensations for the users who track security vulnerabilities. Microsoft, for example, a company whose size and financial possibilities greatly surpass Mozilla's, relies only on a team of o beta-testers who tests the programs without being rewarded in any way. And Microsoft's programs are everything but free, the testers can be at least be stimulated by a price reduction or bonuses for its programs.
Microsoft's official position regarding the rewarding of bug hunters is "not to pay users for tracking these vulnerabilities because there are security solutions that solve them". Microsoft only rewards those users who expose virus authors.