Microsoft announced “New Bounty Programs” for discovering vulnerabilities in Windows 8.1 Preview.
“At the heart of our community outreach programs, we’ve always had the same philosophy: help increase the win-win between Microsoft’s customers and the security research community. We have evolved and deepened our relationships with this community since the earliest days of Microsoft’s outreach,” says official announcement.
There will be three programs starting from June 26 – the day Windows 8.1 Preview will be released at the BUILD conference. They are as follows:
- Mitigation Bypass Bounty (up to $100,000 USD for novel exploitation techniques).
- BlueHat Bonus for Defense (up to $50,000 USD for defensive ideas that accompany a qualifying Mitigation Bypass Bounty submission).
- IE11 Preview Bug Bounty (up to $11,000 USD for critical vulnerabilities that affect IE 11 Preview on Windows 8.1 Preview)
The program is open to everyone aged above 14 with no restrictions.
More detailed information on the conditions of participation in the programs can be found here.