Researchers can Receive Great ‘Bounty’ from Apple for Finding Security Flaws in iPhones

Cybersecurity researchers have a reason to rejoice. According to the latest reports, Apple Inc has decided to offer up to one million dollars as rewards to cybersecurity researchers for finding out faults in iPhones. Interestingly, it is the highest reward any company has ever offered to defend its product offerings against hackers. Moreover, such a move has been announced in the times when there are increasing concerns and instances where the governments break into dissidents, human rights proponents, and journalists’ mobile devices.

It must be taken into account that previously, the tech giant Apple used to offer rewards to only the researchers invited by them for detecting flaws in their phones as well as cloud backups. However, it seems like the company is changing its stride now.

Apple, during Thursday’s annual Black Hat security conference held in Las Vegas, stated that the company will make the process open to all the researchers. Other than that, the company will include Mac software along with other targets in addition to offering a variety of rewards, referred to as bounties, for the most remarkable findings.

As per the reports, the one million dollar prize will only apply to remote access to iPhone kernel minus any actions from the user of the phone. The earlier highest bounty from Apple was of 200 thousand dollars for making friendly bug reports. The company would then fix these bugs with software upgrades so that they aren’t left exposed to spies or criminals.

It was also reported that to make the research simpler, Apple is undertaking additional steps. For instance, providing a modified mobile with disabled security measures. A primary element of infringements is the program which makes the most of an otherwise hidden flaw in phones, installed apps, or software.

However, it’s not just Apple that has announced such a big reward. Government brokers and contractors have also paid up to 2 million dollars to get their hands on the most powerful hacking techniques to acquire data from devices. Furthermore, numerous private firms sell their hacking proficiency to governments, for example, Israeli tech firm NSO Group.