For the past couple of years, Microsoft has created "bug bounty" programs for a variety of its services. Today, Microsoft will expand that program to include its latest browser, "Project Spartan".
Similar to previous Microsoft bounty programs, participants are tasked with finding vulnerabilities in specific applications released by Microsoft. Project Spartan is Microsoft"s latest browser and will be featured in various versions of Windows 10. Participants will have three months to try and discover vulnerabilities with the browser and submit them to Microsoft for payment.
In 2013, a Google employee was able to find a vulnerability in Internet Explorer 11, which netted him $11,000 USD. While not all discovered vulnerabilities will pay out that much, the minimum bounty is set at $500 US dollars with the maximum being $15,000 USD. Naturally, there are a few ground rules in order to participate.
The program has officially launched today and will end on July 22, 2015. Windows 10 with Project Spartan is expected to make its debut sometime in the Summer. The update for Windows will be free to those currently running Windows 7, 8 and 8.1.
Source: Microsoft via Maximum PC