Facebook Offering $40,000 Bounty If You Find Evidence Of Data Leaks

Pic Source : The Hacker News

Facebook has been trying to improve its services since its complete lifetime, and efficiently included all its users into this research program as well. With many of the performance bugs and security issues, being filtered by its users in turn for big cash rewards, Facebook has gone on and improved itself as the time rolled on.

So going according to their ideologies, Facebook has now launched a bounty program for its data abuse issues. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, will soon testify before Congress related to this issue which involved Cambridge Analytica, a major consultancy firm, which illegally got access to information, most personal and confidential to 87 million users and then misused it for their benefit.

Following this debacle, Facebook launched its so-called Data Abuse Bounty program so that people will be rewarded if they found any security issues related to data abuse and helped Facebook track out users and developers, who have misused the confidential information of FB users. The logistics of the data abuse bounty program are same as that of the bug bounty program- the users will be rewarded for reporting developers who were making use of the data abuse.

Each report that will be made by the researchers will have a different quantum of impact on the company. According to its impact, the company will determine what should be the price money that the company will pay to the reporting researcher. With bounty amounts ranging up to $40,000 as well, a much more major report can also surpass this limit. So, if any of the Facebook users come across an event where they witness the data abuse activities being a place, they can report it along with a valid evidence to the company developers, through the Data Abuse Bounty program.

Following this the company will look into your evidence and try to find out and get hold of the misusing application. If the company succeeds in doing so, Facebook will take strict legal actions towards the company, and restrict its services. This move by Facebook has seriously revolutionized the industry since, they have found a new and much more effective way in which they can improve their application and sort out its performance issues.

In order for your report to be eligible for the data abuse bounty program, at least 10k Facebook users should be involved in the scam, and it should completely be explained how the accumulation of data took place and how it was misused. Once the proper explanation is done, it should also be kept in mind that the social media should not be aware of the situation beforehand and your information should be news to it.

Once that is checked by the Facebook officials, you will be eligible for a cash reward relating to the quantum of the impact that your report will create. You can also get more information about the data abuse bounty program on the Facebook website.

Author: Prachi K

Technical Writer, Branding Executive – Hackers Interview. Prachi has professional experience in the area of Branding and Article writing.