Who wants to get paid for hacking complicated video game programs?
Riot Games, the developer and publisher of the award-winning "League of Legends," are asking gamers to hack into their systems to look for bugs and vulnerabilities, and they will be rewarded.
The idea started when a security researcher discovered a vulnerability in the game, and pointed it out to the game creators via email. Though grateful for the information, Riot had no means of rewarding the person for helping them discover the bug. That is why Riot came up with the idea to ask security professionals to help them find more flaws in the system, and they will pay for it.
On its official blog post, the game developing company said, "No software connected to the Internet can be considered 100 percent secure. We know that smart people all over the world poke at our software, websites and infrastructure, looking for weaknesses. Some will successfully find security vulnerabilities. When this happens, it's critical that we become aware of the vulnerability ASAP so that we can fix it before it's widely abused."
This program, called The Riot Bug Bounty program, is being conducted in closed beta together with several hand-picked security professionals. The company had already paid over $100,000 to different security personnel who have discovered a total of 75 bugs, vulnerabilities, and exploits found in "League of Legend" games from April 2013.
Riot's Bug Bounty program works by reporting an undiscovered severe security issue to Riot and submitting it in the HackerOne page. The company has a specific set of guidelines and rules that they follow to determine the amount of reward that the bug discoverer will get for hacking into the system.
The wider, public Bug Bounty program will be launched soon. Riot will provide the details for the upcoming security hack program that will allow more people to join the vulnerability and bug hunt for "League of Legends" in the future.
Check out Riot's official blog for further announcements about Riot's "League of Legends" Bug Bounty program.
