Why Google Is Offering Hackers an ‘Infinity Million Dollars’
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David Paul Morris/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — Google is offering a reward of an “infinity million dollars” to hackers who bring to light vulnerabilities in its Chrome browser and operating system.
The annual security contest called Pwnium has now become a year-round endeavor for Google. The search engine giant said it hopes the new effort will remove the incentive for “big hoarding” in which hackers would wait to collect a reward from the once-a-year contest.
“By allowing security researchers to submit bugs all year-round, collisions are significantly less likely and security researchers aren’t duplicating their efforts on the same bugs,” Tim Willis, a hacker philanthropist on the Chrome Security Team, wrote in a blog post.
Hackers can earn between $500 and $50,000 for each bug they discover, according to the rules, which go into effect Wednesday.
As expected for a company offering an “infinity million dollars,” Google did include a legal disclaimer.
“Our lawyercats wouldn’t let me say ‘never-ending’ or ‘infinity million’ without adding that ‘this is an experimental and discretionary rewards program and Google may cancel or modify the program at any time,'” Willis wrote.
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