Exploit acquisition firm Zerodium on Tuesday announced that it is offering $100,000 for severe vulnerabilities in Pidgin for Windows and Linux.
Pidgin is a multi-platform instant messaging client that relies on the libpurple library to provide support for multiple messaging protocols, which allows users to use the same application with multiple messaging services.
On June 1, Zerodium announced that, until August 31, it will be accepting the submission of exploits for unpatched vulnerabilities that affect the latest version of Pidgin on Windows and/or Linux.
The exploit broker is looking for exploits that could be triggered remotely to achieve execution of arbitrary code.
The company says it’s willing to pay $100,000 for the exploits, as long as they work on a default installation and can be triggered without user interaction “other than reading a message.”
The amount offered is quite large, especially since Pidgin is an open-source application.
Zerodium claims to be purchasing unpatched vulnerabilities for its customers, which it claims are government organizations in North America and Europe.
The company also claims to tightly restrict access to exploits, yet the activities of exploits brokers are often seen as controversial, given that such organizations might also work with oppressive regimes. To date, Zerodium hasn’t been accused of such behavior.
Zerodium is looking for exploits in other software as well, including the Android, iOS, and Windows operating systems, the WordPress content management system, and the open-source hosting control panel for Linux ISPConfig.
Responding to Zerodium’s announcement on Twitter, Pidgin said, “We would hope you plan on disclosing responsibly,” before realizing what Zerodium actually does.
Related: Zerodium Offers $500,000 for VMware ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V Exploits
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