Microsoft Offers $100,000 Bounty For Someone Who Can Find Windows 8.1 Exploits

It is just a matter of one week before Microsoft rolls out the first official public preview version of Windows 8.1, and along with that, you will also find the first preview of the Internet Explorer 11 browser. Microsoft has just announced plans that they will offer a $100,000 bounty to whoever is able to discover and obviously, report exploits in the latest operating system update as well as Internet Explorer 11 browser.

The three new bounty programs will kick off from the moment when the public preview of Windows 8.1 rolls out this coming June 26th. The biggest one would be the Mitigation Bypass Bounty, which obviously carries the $100,000 reward to developers who manage to find, in Microsoft’s words, “truly novel exploitation techniques” in Windows 8.1. It would be interesting to read the fine print to see what “truly novel exploitation techniques” mean. As for the other program, it is known as the BlueHat Bonus for Defense, where it offers up to $50,000 for “defensive ideas that block a qualifying mitigation bypass technique.”

Last but not least, there is the maximum $11,000 bounty for anyone who finds “critical vulnerabilities” in the public preview where Internet Explorer 11 is concerned. [Press Release]

Edwin Kee
Categories: Computers
Tags: internet explorer, Microsoft, windows 8.1