Yes, Apple has now opened the bounty program to the publicly available versions of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS and watchOS. Apple, through a post on their developer page, outlined various bounty categories in their iCloud device through all means, including and not limited to physical access attacks, network attacks etc. The payouts range is anywhere between 100,000 USD to 1 million USD. In August 2019, Apple gave special iPhones to the researches at the Black Hat convention, which is a cyber-security conference that took place in Las Vegas. Apple began their security program in 2016, and offered researchers up to 2,00,000 USD to work and report credible bugs in their OS. Apple however, is not the only tech giant to offer rewards to researchers and hackers. Other companies like Google, Facebook and Microsoft too have created bug bounties in the past. Back in 2016, Apple’s bug bounty program was only open by invitation, but is now open to the public as announced in the Black Hat conference. Researchers will have to submit detailed descriptions of the issue they are facing to allow Apple to replicate the conditions that induce the bug. Top payouts will go to researchers who find bugs that affect a multitude of Apple-owned operating systems, with priority to those issues that affect the latest Apple devices and software. Did we mention that bugs found in a beta version will earn researchers a 50 percent bonus during payout? For the latest gadget and tech news, and gadget reviews, follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. For newest tech & gadget videos subscribe to our YouTube Channel. You can also stay up to date using the Gadget Bridge Android App.
