Though enterprises were once tentative about using so-called bug bounty programs to detect vulnerabilities, researchers are proving to be effective and trustworthy partners in assessing security risks.
Bugcrowd's inaugural "
State of Bug Bounty Report" highlights the bourgeoning economy of bug bounties. In short, a growing reliance on the skills of security researchers across the globe is building a competitive platform for traditional hackers the world over.
During its 2 ½ year-long study, Bugcrowd -- a cybersecurity firm that combines a vulnerability platform with a crowd of security researchers -- reported that they had, "Discovered a total of 729 high-priority vulnerabilities across 166 programs, where 175 of those vulnerabilities were deemed 'critical' by trained application security engineers."
