Know Why Apple Paid $75,000 To The Hacker?

Know Why Apple Paid $75,000 To The Hacker? 

Ryan Pickren an ethical hacker discovered multiple security flaws that could have led to the iPhone camera being hacked. Apple has now fixed these flaws and in the process rewarded the hacker with $75,000 (approximately Rs 57+ lakh). As per a report by Forbes, Ryan Pickren, who is an ethical hacker, discovered as many as seven vulnerabilities in Apple’s browser Safari. Out of these seven flaws, three could’ve led to the iPhone camera being hacked.

Called zero-day vulnerabilities, these could have been exploited by hackers to access camera and microphone permissions. If an iPhone user visited a malicious site, then their phones would have been at risk.

Pickren had found these security flaws back in December 2019 and reported them to Apple. Apple promptly fixed the more serious ones in January 2020 when it rolled out an update to Safari. The 13.0.5 update of Safari had fixed the flaws. The rest — less harmful ones — were fixed in March 2020 with 13.1 Safari update.

The ethical hacker said that he enjoyed working with Apple and the bug bounty program will help protect customers and secure devices. “I really enjoyed working with the Apple product security team when reporting these issues,” he said. He also said that, “the new bounty program is absolutely going to help secure products and protect customers. I’m really excited that Apple embraced the help of the security research community.”

As for the bug bounty program by Apple, this what the Cupertino-based tech giant says on its developer website, “As part of Apple’s commitment to security, we reward researchers who share with us critical issues and the techniques used to exploit them. We make it a priority to resolve confirmed issues as quickly as possible in order to best protect customers. Apple offers public recognition for those who submit valid reports, and will match donations of the bounty payment to qualifying charities.”

In January, Apple fixed three flaws with Safari 13.0.5 update, and the other four flaws were fixed in Safari 13.1 update, which released on March 24.

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