Virtual private network (VPN) services provider NordVPN on Monday announced the launch of a public bug bounty program on the HackerOne platform.
The company says it will pay between $100 and $5,000 per vulnerability, but the payouts can be even higher “for especially clever or severe” weaknesses.
The bug bounty program covers NordVPN websites (nordvpn.com and some subdomains), Chrome and Firefox browser extensions, VPN servers, and desktop and mobile applications for all platforms.
The company has instructed researchers to report vulnerabilities in WordPress, OpenVPN and StrongSwan directly to the respective vendor.
Bug bounty hunters have been assured that no legal action will be taken against them as long as their penetration testing efforts are ethical, but they are not allowed to disclose bugs before a patch is released and without explicit permission, and they must give the company at least 90 days to fix a vulnerability.
Launching a bug bounty program was one of the promises made by NordVPN to customers after news broke that NordVPN and other VPN providers had been breached. NordVPN said at the time that the incident involved a third-party datacenter.
Following the disclosure of the incident, NordVPN promised to launch a bug bounty program, partner with cybersecurity consulting firm VerSprite, conduct a full infrastructure security audit, switch to diskless RAM servers, and adopt higher security standards.
Related: Facebook Expands, Enhances Bug Bounty Programs
Related: LINE Launches Public Bug Bounty Program on HackerOne
Related: Apple Offers Up to $1 Million in Public Bug Bounty Program
Eduard Kovacs (@EduardKovacs) is a contributing editor at SecurityWeek. He worked as a high school IT teacher for two years before starting a career in journalism as Softpedia’s security news reporter. Eduard holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial informatics and a master’s degree in computer techniques applied in electrical engineering.
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