Apple INC (AAPL.O) is offering $ 1 million (about Rs 70477200) to Cyber Security Researchers to detect flaws in iPhones. This is the biggest reward offered by any company to avoid hackers. This offer has come at a time when the incidents of journalists and human rights advocates breaking into mobile devices are increasing.
Earlier, these offers were offered by Apple only to those researchers who tried to find a lot in the phone and cloud backups. However, at the Annual Black Hat Security Conference held in Las Vegas on Thursday, the company announced that this process will be open to all researchers. Also, other targets including Mac software will also be included and different bounties will be given for the most important discovery.
This $ 1 million prize will be applied only to the remote access of the iPhone kernel, which should not include any action from the user of the phone. The largest reward awarded to Apple was $ 200,000. It was given to report friendly bugs, which could be fixed through software updates and kept away from the Criminals.
According to the information received, some government contractors and brokers paid $ 2 million for the most effective hacking techniques to obtain information from devices. In such a situation, Apple's new rewards are also in the vicinity of the prices published by the contractors. Apple is taking many more steps to make research easier. Which includes the introduction of a modified phone in which some security features will be disabled.
Let me tell you, many private companies like Israel's NSO Group sell hacking capabilities to governments. However, this group says that their purpose is only to avoid terror and crime, not to obstruct the work of journalists or critics.
