Join us, HackerOne's Alex Rice, and Veracode's Chris Wysopal for the next episode of Dark Reading Radio, today, Wednesday Nov. 16, at 1pmET.

Sara Peters, Senior Editor

November 15, 2016

2 Min Read

Auto manufacturers, Apple (finally), and even the US military have recently launched bug bounty programs -- inviting security researchers to locate vulnerabilities in their products or systems, and paying sometimes tens of thousands of dollars for just one bug. So bug bounties must be a great idea, right?

Surely these programs have improved cybersecurity, but are there drawbacks as well? Are there negative impacts on security? And how much does a good corporate bug bounty program cost?  

Join us to discuss all this and more on the next episode of Dark Reading radio, "Bug Bounties and the Zero-Day Trade," Wednesday, Nov. 16, at 1 p.m. Eastern Time. We'll pick the brains of expert guests HackerOne CTO and co-founder Alex Rice and Veracode CTO and co-founder Chris Wysopal.

Some of the other questions we'll ask: 

  • Is the promise of money driving the kinds of bugs we look for? Does that skew our understanding of what applications really are the most vulnerable? Does it cause us to miss out on finding more significant vulnerabilities?

  • Is “responsible disclosure” – or “collaborative disclosure” – getting the job done? Are there any industries or cases in which it’s routinely failing us?

  • There is also a “gray market” for zero-day vulnerabilities, sold to law enforcement or government intelligence agencies instead of reported to the vulnerable party. Who supplies the 0-days to that market? Can a corporation's bug-bounty budget compete with the cash quietly exchanged in those gray marketplaces? 

  • An organization obviously wants a vulnerability researcher to report a bug in their product to them first, not to an attacker, a short-seller, or the media. A bug bounty program is a way to encourage researchers to bring bugs directly to you ... but how big do these bounties need to be? How do make sure you’ve got a successful bounty program that doesn’t break the bank? 

Join me, Alex Rice, and Chris Wysopal at 1 p.m. ET, Wednesday, Nov. 16 - to discuss all this and more on Dark Reading Radio.

Have questions of your own? Don't hold back: head on over and add them to the chat, which is already open, and we may answer them on air. Or, join us live and chat with the speakers directly. Can't make it to the live event? Fear not: a recording of the show will be available just moments after it ends. Register now.

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About the Author(s)

Sara Peters

Senior Editor

Sara Peters is Senior Editor at Dark Reading and formerly the editor-in-chief of Enterprise Efficiency. Prior that she was senior editor for the Computer Security Institute, writing and speaking about virtualization, identity management, cybersecurity law, and a myriad of other topics. She authored the 2009 CSI Computer Crime and Security Survey and founded the CSI Working Group on Web Security Research Law -- a collaborative project that investigated the dichotomy between laws regulating software vulnerability disclosure and those regulating Web vulnerability disclosure.


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