Apple has now responded to the matter. According to a report from Motherboard, an Apple employee responded and said, “We saw your blog post about this issue and your other reports. We apologize for the delay in replying to you. We would like to let you know that we are still investigating these issues and how we can address them to protect customers. Thanks again for taking the time to report these issues to us, we appreciate your assistance. Please let us know if you have any questions.”
‘Buggy’ Bug Bounty Program
The Cupertino-based tech giant has a bug bounty program where researchers are rewarded for pointing out security flaws and vulnerabilities. A report in The Washington Post reports that security researchers are “fed up” with Apple’s program. The report cites an iOS software engineer who claims to have submitted multiple bugs to Apple and never received payment. Engineer said he was kicked out apple developer program instead.
The researchers also claimed that Apple takes a long time to complete the payment as compared to other tech companies Microsoft, Google. Facebook, according to the researchers, not only pay more money but do it better. Google It paid out $6.7 million in 2020 under its bug bounty program while Microsoft paid $13.7 million. In comparison, Apple paid $3.7 million.
Apple’s Head of Security Engineering and Architecture made a statement on the bug bounty program. “The Apple Security Bounty Program has been a smashing success,” said Evan Kristik, Apple’s head of security engineering and architecture. Apple nearly doubled the amount it paid out in bug bounties this year compared to last year, and it leads the industry in average amount paid per bounty, he said.
“We have been working hard to grow the program during its dramatic growth, and we are offering top prizes to the security researchers who work with us to protect our users and their data on more than a billion Apple devices worldwide. will continue to do so.” she added.
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