Google paid $10 million to people finding issues with its products in 2023

Google has taken to its blog to share a 2023 Year in Review for its Vulnerability Reward Program, a community-driven security effort that Google pays decent money for.

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Google has rewarded 632 security researchers from 68 different countries with $10 million for all of the bugs discovered in the company's products such as Android and Google-powered devices. Notably, the maximum payout per issue was $15,000, and the biggest payout for a vulnerability report throughout 2023 was $113,337. During 2023 Google added generative AI platforms such as Gemini were added to the Vulnerability Reward Program, and throughout the year 35 reports were paid out for a total of $87,000.

More specifically, Google writes that for Android and Google's own devices it paid out $3.4 million for bugs discovered, with bugs found in its Wear OS and Android Automotive operating systems generating $70,000 across 20 critical bug discoveries. Google Chrome security researchers earned a hefty chunk of money pulling in $2.1 million for 359 vulnerability reports. If you are interested in reading more about this story, check out Google's blog post here.