Apple offers $1 million if you can hack an iPhone

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The iPhone-maker will also began offering a 50 percent bonus for bugs discovered in Apple’s pre-release builds.


Tech giant Apple has confirmed that the company is offering hackers $1 million reward if they manage to hack into their iPhones and explain to the tech how they did it.

The bounty was announced by the company at the annual Black Hat hacker convention in Las Vegas last week. It is said to be the biggest ever payout by the iPhone-maker.

Apple had rolled out its bug bounty programme in 2016 with rewards up to $200,000 for finding vulnerabilities on the iOS platform which would let an attacker gain full control of the device, without needing the user’s consent.

Expanding its bug bounty program to all Apple’s platforms such as iOS, iCloud, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS andwatchOS Apple’s $1 million reward is five times larger than the previous one and is open to everyone.

However, those wanting to win the top prize must note that that the prize will be given only for the very specific hack. Hackers will have to explain how they gained remote access to the core of the iOS software without needing the original user interaction.

Apple head of security Ivan Krstić made the announcement (via ZDNet) at the Black Hat conference, which went on from August 03 – August 08 in Las Vegas

Apart from this, Apple is also offering smaller rewards – up to $500,000 – for those who will be able to discover other vulnerabilities; for example, bypassing iPhone’s lock screen while having physical access to the device will make richer by $100,000. Those will be able to do a kernel code execution through a user-installed app can get up to $150,000, reports Mashable.

The iPhone-maker will also began offering a 50 percent bonus for bugs discovered in Apple’s pre-release builds.

Forbes had earlier reported that Apple would give security researches “jailbroken” iPhones in a bid to make it easier to check for vulnerabilities.

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