Microsoft Will Pay You $20,000 To Find Their Bugs WIth ‘Xbox Bounty Program’

Looking for a way to make money while still using the console that you love? Look no further. Microsoft announced last week that they will be launching an ‘Xbox Bounty Program.’  The goal is to encourage gamers to solve any potential coding errors that may have slipped the eyes of Microsoft developers.

“The bounty program supplements our existing investments in security development and testing to uncover and remediate vulnerabilities which have a direct and demonstrable impact on the security of Xbox customers. Public bounty programs are a valuable approach which combine with ongoing internal testing, private programs and knowledge shared by partners to produce a secure ecosystem to play in,” stated Chloé Brown, the Program Manager at Xbox.

The amount of money earned by a user, depends on the severity of the identified bug. Microsoft assesses the threat of their bug with a ‘Low/Moderate/Important/Critical’ range. Users can also be awarded more money if their report is determined to be of high quality. Microsoft also assess quality reports with a ‘Low/Medium/High’ range. Bug squashers will be making a minimum of $1000 per bug found.

There are very few requirements which would prevent a user to participate. Users must be over the age of 14, not a current or former employee of Microsoft, or not live in any country that is currently being sanctioned by the United States government.

Rival company Sony also has a similar program to squash their online bugs. Their vulnerability disclosure program is Sony’s way of incentivizing technicians and other online gamers to assist.  They will reward players with a ‘Thank You!’ email, and a t-shirt for finding any server breaking bugs.