The tech giant wants to ensure that its iPhones and Macs have no vulnerabilities when it comes to the potential for being hacked. It has thus increased the amount it's willing to offer expert hackers to try and overcome the system. This is to date the highest amount offered by any such company to address their weaknesses.
Originally, the program was offering $200,000 to those researchers who wanted to try and outsmart the system. Before this, bug-hunters had to be invited to participate. In addition to enlarging the prize monumentally, they've also opened it up as far as who is eligible to hack.
Also, important to note, as reported by Forbes, Apple is now expanding the scope of the project to include Mac hacks as well as hacks of its Apple TV system.
Who Will Hack an iPhone for $1 Million?
To receive the entire amount being offered, researchers need to find a hack of the core of iOS with no clicks required by the owner of the iPhone. There is also 500k being offered to participants who can find a "network attack requiring no user interaction." The reason for the reward increase may be because hackers are discovering they can sell their findings to government agencies for huge sums of money.
It was recently reported that the going price for a program that can use a phone's vulnerabilities to its advantage may be as high as 1.5 million in some places. For example, an exploit that can hack into WhatsApp with no user clicks can easily fetch that much money. Such exploits though are generally hard to come by.
A company known as Zerodium made it well known that it was willing to pay up to 2 million for the ability to hack into an iPhone remotely. It would consequently pay researchers for this information and then sell the same to government customers.
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