Intel Expands Bug Bounty Program in Wake Of Spectre, Meltdown Flaws

(Editor's Note: This move by Intel aims to expand their bug-bounty program to specifically include side-channel attacks, such as those that can be leverage on the Spectre and Meltdown exploits. The company is also increasing the rewards it will give the researchers who find new flaws, a move that aims to employ the masses' knowledge and ingenuity to try and reach the hard-earned bonus at the end of the vulnerability - all while saving Intel much more money than it's paying to bug hunters.)

At Intel, we believe that working with security researchers is a crucial part of identifying and mitigating potential security issues in our products. Similar to other companies, one of the ways we've made this part of our operating model is through a bug bounty program. The Intel Bug Bounty Program was launched in March 2017 to incentivize security researchers to collaborate with us to find and report potential vulnerabilities. This, in turn, helps us strengthen the security of our products, while also enabling a responsible and coordinated disclosure process.

Coordinated disclosure is widely regarded as the best way to responsibly protect customers from security exploits. It minimizes the risk that exploitable information becomes publicly known before mitigations are available. Working closely with our industry partners and our customers, we encourage responsible and coordinated disclosure to improve the likelihood that users will have solutions available when security issues are first published. Our Bug Bounty Program supports this objective by creating a process whereby the security research community can inform us, directly and in a timely fashion, about potential exploits that its members discover.

In support of our recent security-first pledge, we've made several updates to our program. We believe these changes will enable us to more broadly engage the security research community, and provide better incentives for coordinated response and disclosure that help protect our customers and their data.

Updates to our program include:

• Shifting from an invitation-only program to a program that is open to all security researchers, significantly expanding the pool of eligible researchers.
• Offering a new program focused specifically on side channel vulnerabilities through Dec. 31, 2018. The award for disclosures under this program is up to $250,000.

Raising bounty awards across the board, with awards of up to $100,000 for other areas.