Instagram hacked by Jani, so Facebook gave him $10,000 because of his white-hat stylee. Also, it's good PR to be seen to reward a 10-year-old proto-researcher.
Facebook paid the bug bounty to the pseudonymous kid from Finland for a vulnerability that could allow anyone to delete any comment, anywhere on the Instagram service. Zuckerberg's crew figured that was a serious problem, which demands a lot more than their usual derisory $500 token.
In IT Blogwatch, bloggers picture this. Not to mention: Finland, Finland, Finland…
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What’s the craic? Hanna Gråsten is lost in translation—Jani discovered a vulnerability in Instagram:
Helsinki-based 10-year-old Jani discovered [the] vulnerability in March. ... "I found that I can delete other people's comments," Jani told [me].
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After a couple of days, Instagram responded...that the vulnerability has been fixed. As a thank you [he] was paid $10,000 (EUR 9043). ... His father was astonished.
Cunning, eh? Thomas Fox-Brewster agrees—10-Year-Old Hacks Instagram:
Jani (full name not revealed) [is] the youngest ever recipient of a Facebook bug bounty. [The] vulnerability...allowed him to delete any comment on the photo sharing application.
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Facebook [said] Jani verified his report by deleting a [test] comment the company posted. ... The problem lay in a private [API] that wasn’t properly checking that the person deleting the comment was the...one who posted it.
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The previous youngest recipient of a bounty was just 13. ... Given Jani’s auspicious start, he could become a top whitehat hacker.
How does $10K compare to other bounties? Ben Guarino counts $10,000 for exposing flaw in Instagram:
Facebook compensated [him] or, more accurately, his parents on Jani’s behalf. [It] puts Jani in the upper tier of hackers Facebook has paid. ... Facebook says it has paid out some $4.3 million to over 800 researchers. ... Most of those payouts are much smaller amounts.
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“We base our bounties on the scope of the risk,”...Melanie Ensign, a security representative at Facebook...said. The flaw...“would have impacted everybody on Instagram.”
Impressive stuff. And Charlie Osborne lugs the story onward—security flaw:
Facebook awards researchers a minimum of $500 per valid disclosure. ... Jani's bug was considered impressive enough to warrant...$10,000.
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What does Jani...plan to do with his winnings? Buy a new PC and bike, of course.
Meanwhile, what's going on in Finland to breed such young hackers? Iain Thomson looks back a couple of months—Facebook bungs 10-year-old kid $10k:
In March, HackerOne CEO Mårten Mickos...who is also Finnish, said the Suomi state is pulling well above its weight...having given us Linus Torvalds, Nokia [and] Monty Widenius. ... He attributed this to its excellent school system, fast and cheap internet...and long, cold, dark Finnish winters.
And Finally…
Michael Palin sings about Finland (badly)
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