Apple Offers $200k Reward For Bug Reports

Spotted a security flaw in Apple (LSE: 0R2V.L - news) 's software? The tech giant will now pay up to a record $200,000 as a thank you.

The bounty was announced at the Black Hall information security conference, and will come into force next month.

Bug bounties are nothing new, and Apple has been late to embrace the growing trend for tech firms to pay people to alert them to security issues.

Pressure has grown in recent months, after the FBI found a way to exploit iPhone's security systems to bypass the passcode lock.

Some in the security community pointed out that with a rewards system for reporting bugs in place, white hat hackers - who are well-meaning - would have spotted it and alerted Apple.

Ivan Krstic, Apple's head of security engineering and architecture, told the Las Vegas conference: "We've had great help from researchers like you in improving iOS security all along.

"Feedback (LSE: FDBK.L - news) that we've heard pretty consistently both from my team at Apple and also from researchers directly is that it's getting increasingly more difficult to find some of those most critical types of security vulnerabilities.

"So the Apple Security Bounty Program is going to reward researchers who actually share critical vulnerabilities with Apple."

The program will pay out up to $200,000 for spotting security vulnerabilities in the main boot firmware components.

This is double that offered by Windows for vulnerabilities in its Windows 10 operating system.

Mr Kristic added: "We're fortunate that we've earned trust from our customers, but we realise that that's something we have to keep earning."