In 2023, Google awarded $10 million to researchers who discovered bugs and security flaws

Like other significant IT companies, Google also has a bug bounty program through which it compensates security researchers for discovering flaws in its goods and services. On Tuesday, the internet behemoth said on its blog that it gave over 600 researchers across 68 countries an astounding $10 million in funding last year.

Google said, “We saw the strength of community-driven security initiatives last year when researchers from all around the globe helped us find and fix thousands of vulnerabilities in our products and services. We gave our more than 600 researchers, spread over 68 nations, $10 million in collaboration with our passionate bug hunting community.

The blog post disclosed that Google also held their “yearly security conference ESCAL8 in Tokyo” in an effort to facilitate their interaction with leading security experts. Google thanked all of the hardworking researchers in addition to giving their “2023 Year in Review statistics across” all of the initiatives. “We look forward to more collaboration in the future! We would like to give a special thank you to all of our dedicated researchers for their continued work with our programs,” the statement said.

Moreover, the blog post said that 632 researchers from 68 different countries received a portion of the $10 million jackpot. Google said that although the total amount was generously split, the biggest individual prize was $113,337, without naming the precise recipient or the issue they found.

Google also said that the researcher who discovered significant Android vulnerabilities received almost $3.4 million in compensation, while the researcher who discovered serious vulnerabilities received $15,000. “We increased our maximum reward amount to $15,000 for critical vulnerabilities and awarded over $3.4 million in rewards to researchers who uncovered remarkable vulnerabilities within Android,” the article said.

Google went on, “At the ESCAL8 conference, we worked closely with top researchers to host a live hacking event for Wear OS and Android Automotive OS. The event resulted in a $70,000 reward for researchers who found over 20 critical vulnerabilities.”

Google collaborated with leading hardware security researchers at its I/O conference, and these researchers found over “50 vulnerabilities in Nest, Fitbit, and Wearables, and received a total of $116,000 last year!” It is also noteworthy that researchers discovered 359 distinct security flaws in the Chrome browser, which “resulted in $2.1M in rewards.”