Microsoft Launches Security Vulnerability Bounty Program for Online Services

Microsoft announced that it is launching a bug bounty program for its online services.

The program is open to anyone across the globe and offers a minimum reward of $500 USD paid out according to the vulnerability’s impact.

Eligible submissions will include the following types of vulnerabilities: cross-site scripting; cross-site request forgery; unauthorized cross-tenant data tampering or access; insecure direct object references; injection flaws; authentication flaws; server-side code execution; privilege escalation and significant security misconfiguration.

Submissions have to affect the following domains:

• portal.office.com
• *.outlook.com (Office 365 for business email services applications, excluding any consumer “outlook.com” services)
• outlook.office365.com
• login.microsoftonline.com
• *.sharepoint.com
• *.lync.com
• *.officeapps.live.com
• www.yammer.com
• api.yammer.com
• adminwebservice.microsoftonline.com
• provisioningapi.microsoftonline.com
• graph.windows.net

“The aim of the bug bounty is to uncover significant vulnerabilities that have a direct and demonstrable impact to the security of our users and our users’ data,” according to Microsoft.

Some activities are not permitted under the program, namely any kind of denial-of-service testing, performing automated testing of services that generates significant amounts of traffic or gaining access to any data that is not “wholly your own,” Microsoft explained. In addition, moving beyond proof-of-concept reproduction steps for server-side execution issues or attempting phishing or other social engineering attacks against Microsoft employees are also prohibited.

“Bounty amounts will be determined at Microsoft’s discretion based primarily on the impact of the vulnerability,” according to Microsoft. “However the detail, quality, and complexity of the vulnerability will also be considered in making a determination. Microsoft retains sole discretion in determining which submissions are qualified. The minimum bounty paid for a qualified submission will be $500 USD. There are no restrictions on the number of qualified submissions an individual submitter can provide and be paid for.”

“In the event that we receive multiple bug reports for the same issue from different parties, the bounty will be granted to the first submission,” the company continued. “If you do not wish to receive a bounty payment for your vulnerability submission, Microsoft will gladly work with you to donate the bounty to an approved charity.”

Participants must be 14 years old or older, and those participants who are legally minors must have the permission of their parent or legal guardian. Also, any resident of a country under U.S. sanctions, such as Cuba, Syria or North Korea is not allowed to participate in the program. Microsoft employees and their immediate family members are also not allowed to be involved.

More details on the program can be found here.