Security bug hunters have a very tempting reason to get serious in hacking Chromebooks. Google has doubled its bounty for its Google Chrome Reward Program from $50,000 to $100,000.
The search giant said it is doubling its reward to those who will really strive to expose the weaknesses of its Chromebooks, Chrome OS and Chrome browser.
Increasing the bounty twice shows that the company really wants to secure its systems and services. According to the Mountain View, California-based company, it had already awarded a huge $2 million to bounty hunters in 2015.
In particular, the company is very eager to ensure that Chromebooks can prevent security threats while it is in Guest Mode. No bounty hunter has claimed any reward yet but Google wants to continue further by increasing the reward money twice. It hopes that by doing so, more skillful and talented hackers will explore and discover its weaknesses.
The guest mode of Chromebooks, GOOG -0.33% will be the target of hackers. One method they can try is to put a number of devices into this mode when they share their low-cost laptops with their friends, if they still want to keep their account data private.
As of this date, Google has admitted that no one has successfully broken into the system yet. Therefore the doubling of the reward indicates how serious the search giant is in discovering the vulnerabilities of Chromebooks.
According to the Chrome Reward Program Rules, "Rewards for qualifying bugs typically range from $500 to $100,000. We have a standing $100,000 reward for participants that can compromise a Chromebook or Chromebox with device persistence in guest mode."
From its start in 2010, the bug bounty program of Google has awarded more than $6 million in cash to researchers and hackers. The internet search giant said that in 2015, it has rewarded more than 300 bounty hunters in line with this company scheme.
