Microsoft renews Windows Bounty Program with rewards up to $250,000

Microsoft has launched a new bounty program for developers and coders to find bugs in their system. The program has been initiated to clean up whatever remaining bugs have made their way into Windows 10.

Microsoft has been running such programs for years, the original one starting with the launch of Windows 8.1, back in mid-2013. During that time the company was giving out rewards of up to $50,000 for exploits, in its attempt to help address any potential security issues before they could become a larger public concern. The program became so successful that it was later taken up by several tech biggies like Google, Facebook and, more recently, Apple. 

“In the spirit of maintaining a high security bar in Windows, we’re launching the Windows Bounty Program on July 26, 2017. This will include all features of the Windows Insider Preview in addition to focus areas in Hyper-V, Mitigation bypass, Windows Defender Application Guard, and Microsoft Edge. We’re also bumping up the pay-out range for the Hyper-V Bounty Program,” said Microsoft in a blog post.

Simply named the Windows Bounty Program, the program expands on that original program with loftier rewards for bug finders. It will also cover more ground in Windows 10. The rewards go all the way up to $250,000 for anyone who’s able to discover exploits in Microsoft Hyper-V, the company’s famed virtualization software and start at $500 which will be handed out to, “any critical or important class remote code execution, elevation of privilege, or design flaws that compromises a customer’s privacy and security.”