Wow!! Cool money for this young hacker
Helsinki, Finland is now home to Facebook’s youngest
whitehat hacker. Although his last name is being withheld
for obvious privacy reasons, a 10 year old boy named
Jani found an exploit in Instagram that allowed him to
delete any comment that he chose on the popular image
sharing social platform. To confirm the vulnerability for
Facebook, the child deleted a comment that the company
made on a test account. In response, the social giant gave
the hacking wunderkind a $10,000 prize as part of their
bug bounty program.
“I would have been able to eliminate anyone,” Jani told
the Finnish publication Iltalehti, “even Justin Bieber.”
Facebook has revealed that the vulnerability was located
in a private application programming interface that was
failing to check whether the user making an action to
delete a comment was the same user who posted it.
Jani says his prize money will go toward football
equipment and a new bicycle. He hopes to be a security
expert when he grows up, and it seems he’s well on his
way. The skills he developed simply from watching
YouTube videos allowed him to find a bug in one of the
world’s largest social media platforms.
Facebook’s bug bounty program is an ongoing incentive
that offers cash rewards to anyone who is able to report
and verify vulnerabilities. In 2015 alone, the program paid
out $936,000 to 210 researchers with the average payout
landing at $1,780. Since its launch in 2011, the program
has awarded over $4.3 million to bug-hunting
researchers.
What do you think of Facebook’s youngest security
defender?
Helsinki, Finland is now home to Facebook’s youngest
whitehat hacker. Although his last name is being withheld
for obvious privacy reasons, a 10 year old boy named
Jani found an exploit in Instagram that allowed him to
delete any comment that he chose on the popular image
sharing social platform. To confirm the vulnerability for
Facebook, the child deleted a comment that the company
made on a test account. In response, the social giant gave
the hacking wunderkind a $10,000 prize as part of their
bug bounty program.
“I would have been able to eliminate anyone,” Jani told
the Finnish publication Iltalehti, “even Justin Bieber.”
Facebook has revealed that the vulnerability was located
in a private application programming interface that was
failing to check whether the user making an action to
delete a comment was the same user who posted it.
Jani says his prize money will go toward football
equipment and a new bicycle. He hopes to be a security
expert when he grows up, and it seems he’s well on his
way. The skills he developed simply from watching
YouTube videos allowed him to find a bug in one of the
world’s largest social media platforms.
Facebook’s bug bounty program is an ongoing incentive
that offers cash rewards to anyone who is able to report
and verify vulnerabilities. In 2015 alone, the program paid
out $936,000 to 210 researchers with the average payout
landing at $1,780. Since its launch in 2011, the program
has awarded over $4.3 million to bug-hunting
researchers.
What do you think of Facebook’s youngest security
defender?
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