Sony announced a bug bounty program for PlayStation 4, its accessories, and the whole network that includes websites. The reward announced is more than double of what its rivals, Microsoft and Nintendo announced. The program is hosted on HackerOne platform and is open for receiving reports from red hat hackers and general users.
Rewards Up to $50,000 and More
Sony is the last one among the big gaming hardware companies to announce a bug bounty program. Nintendo has started in 2016, and Microsoft has come up with one in January this year, both having a maximum payout of $20,000 for high severity bugs. Whereas Sony, on the other hand, would pay reporters up to $50,000 and even more in some cases.
The program is hosted on HackerOne, a platform where many reputed tech companies like Uber, Shopify, Slack, Twitter and Snapchat too have bounty programs. Any player or a general user or a red hat (ethical) hacker can find and submit bugs, which will be analysed to determine if they’re worth paying or not.
Currently, the scope of this reward program extends to PlayStation 4 Console and its accessories, PlayStation’s operating system and PSN (PlayStation Network). This includes the PlayStation’s wide range of websites like my.playstation.com, .sonyentertainmentnetwork.com, api.playstation.com, store.playstation.com, social.playstation.com, transact.playstation.com, wallets.api.playstation.com.
To make it clear, this program doesn’t reward reporters on bugs found in PS1, PS2, PS3 or PSP. May this be extended to the upcoming PS5 when it hits the market. Talking about rewards, Sony distinguishes the bug reports submitted under low, medium, and severe categories to pay cash rewards accordingly.
The bounty will be classified as $100 (for low), $400 (for medium) and $1,000 (for high severity bugs) on PSN. Further, a critical bug can even garner $3,000. On the other hand, low, medium and severe bugs in PS4 can get you $500, $2,500 and $10,000 respectively. Any critical bug above all these can get $50,000 too.
Sony has announced a bug bounty program for PlayStation last year but was private and limited to invite-only hackers. And now, it’s open for public and will be considering bugs that aren’t seen before and worth exploiting. Thus, here’s a chance.
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- Microsoft Defender ATP is now available for Android
- Google introduces one-tap sign-in feature for more easy access
This post was last modified on June 27, 2020