The U.S. company triples the compensation for those who manage to hack iPhone. Much lesser reward, instead, for those who hack Android 7 Nougat
Do you think you are a good programmer and you want in some way to exploit your skills? Try knocking on Apple's door. No, we're not referring to the Apple Academy opened at the beginning of October in Naples. We're referring, instead, to the possibility to find and sell bugs in iOS 10.
Zerodium, a company active in the field of computer security and operating systems, has in fact revised (upwards) its price list in case some user manages to hack the iPhone and is willing to resell his discovery. In case of a flaw in iOS 10, the U.S. company would be willing to cut a check for $ 1.5 million, so as to come into possession of information of great industrial value. Zerodium, however, is not looking for just any bugs: the programmer-hackers will have to find zero-day flaws (unknown to Apple itself) that allow remote control of Apple phones.
The price list
Programmers who manage to find the iOS 10 jailbreak will earn three times as much as those who, last year, managed to find serious system flaws in iOS 9. Zerodium's entire price list, however, has been revised upward. A hacker who manages to find bugs in Android 7 will take home 200 thousand dollars (compared to 100 thousand previously), while a Flash flaw pays up to 100 thousand dollars. If, instead, one discovers programming flaws in Word or Excel, one earns "only" 50 thousand dollars.
Who sells and who buys
The increase in the "salary" of hackers able to find iOS 10 jailbreaks can be explained in the light of the rewards that Apple (as well as other software houses for their products) is willing to pay. Zerodium is just the tip of an iceberg that includes government organizations, criminal organizations and many others.