Many people are not aware that we have paid a bounty in the past on web application security vulnerabilities which impact client security. We have only paid on critical or extraordinary web application vulnerabilities which have a direct impact against the client. We are now going to include critical and high severity web application vulnerabilities on selected sites. We are giving a range starting at $500 (US) for high severity and, in some cases, may pay up to $3000 (US) for extraordinary or critical vulnerabilities.

We want to encourage the discovery of security issues within our web applications with the goal of keeping our users safe. We also want to reward security researchers for their efforts with the hope of furthering constructive security research.

This new policy will go into effect starting December 15th, 2010 PST, and any new web application bugs will fall under this new policy. It is important to note that nothing else has changed with the original security bounty program and the updated amount which was announced back in July.

The Web Security Bounty FAQ includes which types of vulnerabilities will be considered and which sites will be considered to be apart of the Web Application Bounty Program.

The full text of the security bounty program:

http://www.mozilla.org/security/bug-bounty.html

Chris Lyon

Director of Infrastructure Security