GitHub Celebrates a Decade of Bug Bounty Program with Major Milestones

On Jun 12, 2024

GitHub is celebrating a significant milestone: the 10th anniversary of its Security Bug Bounty Program. Over the past decade, the program has evolved and expanded, reflecting GitHub’s unwavering commitment to improving the security of its services through collaboration with the global security research community.

Launch and Early Years

The GitHub Security Bug Bounty Program was launched in 2014, aiming to engage security researchers in identifying and reporting vulnerabilities. From the outset, the program emphasized the importance of user trust and the necessity of additional eyes to identify hard-to-find vulnerabilities.

Initially focused on a subset of GitHub’s products and services, the program quickly demonstrated its value, leading to a broader scope and increased participation.

Major Milestones

Throughout its first decade, the GitHub Security Bug Bounty Program has achieved several noteworthy milestones:

2014: The program’s launch marked the beginning of a new era in GitHub’s security strategy, as it started leveraging the global community of security researchers.
2016: Transitioned to HackerOne, a popular bug bounty platform, improving the program’s accessibility and management.
2017: Increased payouts and participated in the Hack the World event, rewarding researchers more generously and enhancing GitHub’s reputation in the security community.
2018: Introduced the Legal Safe Harbor policy, providing better protection for researchers and encouraging more participation.
2019: Expanded the program’s scope to include more products like GitHub Actions and GitHub Mobile, and saw a 40% increase in submissions.
2020: Ranked in HackerOne’s top ten bounty programs, highlighting the program’s success and efficiency.
2021: Matched over $64,000 in donations from bounties, supporting various charities and demonstrating GitHub’s commitment to social responsibility.
2022: Launched the Bug Bounty swag store, allowing researchers to earn branded merchandise in addition to monetary rewards.
2023: Paid out the highest single reward to date, $75,000, and surpassed $4,000,000 in total rewards by the end of the year.

2023 Year in Review

In 2023, GitHub focused on increasing transparency, growing both public and private programs, and enhancing community engagement. Efforts included:

Improving transparency around payments, reports, and decisions to better meet community needs.
Running private bounty engagements with VIP researchers, including new features like GitHub Copilot Chat.
Ensuring the public program’s scope is regularly updated with GitHub’s latest offerings.
Attending conferences to foster community engagement and share best practices.

Looking Ahead

As GitHub moves into the next decade, the focus will be on further improving the processes around payout validation, advancing public disclosures, and offering exclusive training and opportunities for the VIP community. GitHub remains dedicated to enhancing the bug bounty program and continuing its collaboration with the global security community to make its platform more secure.

For more detailed information about the program and its milestones, visit the official GitHub blog.

Image source: Shutterstock

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