Microsoft has recently announced an extension for its Windows 8.1 bug bounty program, but it turns out that it also wants to make the Internet safer with help from its rivals.

Facebook and Microsoft joined forces for a new project called Internet Bug Bounty, which encourages hackers and security researchers to submit bugs for cash rewards.

The Internet Bug Bounty program will pay a minimum for $5,000 for flaws in sandboxed applications or for bugs in fundamental internet technologies such as DNS and SSL. Lower payouts are offered for spotting problems in Ruby, Python, PHP, Apache, Perl, and other [...]

Today, Microsoft announced one researcher, James Forshaw, has been awarded a whopping $100,000 for finding and reporting a new mitigation bypass exploit in Windows 8.1.

James Forshaw, who heads vulnerability research at London-based security consulting firm Context Information Security, won Microsoft’s first US$100,000 bounty for identifying a new “exploitation technique” in Windows, which will allow it to develop defenses against an entire class of attacks, the software maker said on Tuesday. 

Forshaw earned another US$9,400 for identifying security bugs in a [...]

If you’re good enough with code, perhaps you can make some good money digging up bugs for Microsoft.

Microsoft is offering what it calls a ‘Bounty Program’ to finding exploits and vulnerabilities for Windows 8.1.  Google has had a similar program for its Chrome web browser for quite some time now, though not offering as much money.

The new exploitation method must not be one that Microsoft already knows or that has been described in prior works and the submission must also include a white paper explaining the method.

The biggest one is the [...]