The state of the industry
It has been 28 years since the beginning of this phenomenon. In 1995, Netscape created the first bug bounty program as we know it today and decided to reward any security researcher who found and reported any bug in their Netscape Navigator 2.0 browser.
The following screenshot presents the history of the adoption of bug bounty programs:
Figure 1.1 – The history of bug bounty programs
Today, bug bounty programs are a common practice among companies and organizations, both large and small. Many technology companies, such as Microsoft, Apple, and Facebook, have their own in-house bug bounty programs, while other companies use third-party platforms to administer their programs.
In the following screenshot, you can see Apple’s bug bounty program. Undoubtedly it is a great challenge and achievement to find security bugs in a giant corporation such as Apple:
Figure 1.2 – Apple bug...
