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BlueHat Prize

An update on the bounty programs

Monday, October 07, 2013

Back in June of this year, we announced three new bounty programs that will pay researchers for techniques that bypass built-in OS mitigations and protections, for defenses that stop those bypasses and for vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer 11 Preview. This past Friday, we provided some additional details about the results of the IE11 Preview bounty program, which covered the first 30 days of the preview period.

Filling A Gap In the Vulnerability Market – First Bounty Notification

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

When Microsoft decided to offer not one but three new bounties, paying outside researchers directly for security research on some of our latest products, we put a lot of thought into developing those bounty programs. We developed a customized set of programs designed to create a win-win between the security researcher community and Microsoft’s customers, by focusing on key data about what researchers were doing with vulnerabilities they found in our products.

New Bounty Programs – One Week In

Wednesday, July 03, 2013

Two weeks ago, Microsoft made an important evolutionary step in our work with the security community when we announced our first-ever bounty programs for security issues. One week ago, the Windows 8.1 Preview and Internet Explorer 11 Preview became available for download, and the doors officially opened for bounty-eligible submissions to secure [at] Microsoft [dot] com.

Doors Open for New Bounty Programs

Thursday, June 27, 2013

As we announced last week, Microsoft is now offering $100,000 bounties for new exploitation techniques that can bypass our latest platform-wide defenses and up to $50,000 bonus bounties for defense ideas. We’re also offering (from now until July 26) bounties of up to $11,000 for critical security issues in Internet Explorer 11 Preview.

Heart of Blue Gold – Announcing New Bounty Programs

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Our Philosophy At the heart of our community outreach programs, we’ve always had the same philosophy: help increase the win-win between Microsoft’s customers and the security research community. We have evolved and deepened our relationships with this community since the earliest days of Microsoft’s outreach. In the early 2000’s, Microsoft had to go through what I call “the five stages of vulnerability response grief.

Announcing the BlueHat Prize winners!

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Minutes ago in Las Vegas at the Microsoft Researcher Appreciation Party, we completed the journey we set out on together at the 2011 Black Hat briefings. There, we asked the security research community to focus its talent and expertise on defense, to design and prototype novel runtime mitigation technologies to prevent the successful exploitation of memory safety vulnerabilities.

BlueHat Prize technology available in Tech Preview

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

One year ago this week we challenged the security community to take an unconventional focus on defensive innovation. We called that challenge the BlueHat Prize, and tomorrow night, we will award the grand prize of $200,000 to one of the finalists, either Jared DeMott, Ivan Fratric, or Vasilis Pappas. All three finalists submitted prototype mitigations that help prevent exploits that use Return Oriented Programming (ROP) techniques.

The BlueHat Prize finalists, in their own words

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

In a little less than 24 hours, we will award $200,000 to Jared DeMott, Ivan Fratric, or Vasilis Pappas as we name the inaugural winner of the BlueHat Prize – and we’ll award more than $50,000 for the two runners-up. As excitement builds towards that announcement, I was fortunate enough to sit down with each finalist and get to know them a little bit better.

Countdown to the BlueHat Prize announcement and a chance for you to win $5000

Monday, July 16, 2012

Hello, To mark the start of the 10-day countdown to the BlueHat Prize award ceremony, the MSRC Ecosystem Strategy Team is announcing the BlueHat Prize Question Sweepstakes that will give you a chance to win $5,000 at Black Hat this year! Be sure to check out the official announcement here and the official rules here to see how your input could help us shape a future BlueHat Prize contest.