Google to reward programmers who find security flaws

The online search and advertising giant, Google, has announced it would offer financial compensation to programmers who identify security flaws on Google-owned web properties, including the company’s video sharing site YouTube, and its social network Orkut.

The compensation ranges from $500 to $3,133.70 per identified security flaw, with the payout dependent on the severity of the risk identified as measured by a systematic process developed by the company.

 Google says programmers must manually find the vulnerabilities without using automated scripts, in order to preserve the integrity of its web properties and to hedge against any possible denial of service (DOS). Additionally, programmers are not permitted to attack the company’s corporate infrastructure, or resort to non-web application vulnerabilities, that is, the cash reqwards do not extend to local desktop Google applications, even if they interact with the web properties allowed.

Google already offered a rewards program for other projects at the company.

The idea behind the project is to make its web properties that contain user sensitive information more secure, and to hedge against possible future cyber attacks that would be most costly.