A company that acquires and sells zero-day exploits — flaws in software that are unknown to the affected developer — is now offering to pay researchers

cross-posted from !android@lemdro.id

  • Operation Zero, a Russian company, has increased its bounty for zero-day exploits on iPhones and Android devices from $200,000 to $20 million.
  • The company sells these exploits exclusively to Russian private and government organizations, specifying that the end user is a non-NATO country.
  • The high bounties may be temporary and are a reflection of market demand and the difficulty of hacking iOS and Android platforms.
  • Unlike traditional bug bounty platforms, Operation Zero sells vulnerabilities to governments without alerting the affected vendors.
  • The zero-day market is largely unregulated, but affected by geopolitics, such as new regulations in China that aim to corner the market for intelligence purposes.
  • Apathy TreeEnglish
    11•1 year ago

    I hope whomever claims the bounty also alerts the relevant platform. Perhaps they can get 2 bounties.

    • @Nath@aussie.zone
      4•1 year ago

      I doubt I’ll ever be in this position. But, I can assure you that double-crossing a Russian Mafia gang is not on my bucket list.