Google spent over $12 million for more than 2,900 vulnerabilities in its products discovered and reported by security researchers.
The biggest payout was for a report detailing an exploit chain of five bugs (CVE-2022-20427, CVE-2022-20428, CVE-2022-20454, CVE-2022-20459, CVE-2022-20460) in Android submitted by gzobqq, which was rewarded with $605,000.
Google also awarded $486,000 last year for 700 security reports through the invite-only Android Chipset Security Reward Program (ACSRP) – a private reward program that Google offers in collaboration with Android chipset makers.
The company also paid a total of $4 million in 2022 for 363 vulnerabilities in Chrome Browser and 110 security issues in ChromeOS.
Google announced that this year Chrome VRP will start experimenting and may offer bonus opportunities for security issues reported in the browser and ChromeOS.
The rewards program for open-source products that Google launched in August 2022 awarded more than 100 bug hunters with over $110,000.
Apart from bounties paid to researchers, Google also awarded more than $250,000 in grants to more than 170 researchers. These funds are for individuals that keep an eye on Google products and services, even if they don’t find any vulnerabilities.
In 2022, Google paid 703 researchers for the reports submitted through the Vulnerability Rewards Programs and was a sponsor for the NahamCon and BountyCon security-related conferences.
