Security Research | Microsoft Security Response Center

Expanding High Impact Scenario Awards for Microsoft Bug Bounty Programs

Thursday, April 14, 2022

We are excited to announce the addition of scenario-based bounty awards to the Dynamics 365 and Power Platform Bounty Program and M365 Bounty Program. Through these new scenario-based bounty awards, we encourage researchers to focus their research on vulnerabilities that have the highest potential impact on customer privacy and security. Awards increase by up to 30% ($26,000 USD total) for eligible scenario submissions.

On-Premises Servers Products are Here! Introducing the Applications and On-Premises Servers Bug Bounty Program

Tuesday, April 05, 2022

Microsoft is excited to announce the addition of Exchange on-premises, SharePoint on-premises, and Skype for Business on-premises to the Applications and On-Premises Servers Bounty Program. Through this expanded program, we encourage researchers to discover and report high-impact security vulnerabilities to help protect customers. We offer awards up to $26,000 USD for eligible submissions.

Exploring a New Class of Kernel Exploit Primitive

Tuesday, March 22, 2022

The security landscape is dynamic, changing often and as a result, attack surfaces evolve. MSRC receives a wide variety of cases spanning different products, bug types and exploit primitives. One particularly interesting primitive we see is an arbitrary kernel pointer read. These often happen when kernel mode code does not validate that pointers read from attacker-controlled input actually point to the user-mode portion of the Virtual Address Space (VAS).

Security Research

New High Impact Scenarios and Awards for the Azure Bounty Program

Monday, October 18, 2021

Microsoft is excited to announce new Azure Bounty Program awards up to $60,000 to encourage and reward vulnerability research focused on the highest potential impact to customer security. These increased awards are a part of our ongoing investment in partnership with the security research community, and an important part of Microsoft’s holistic approach to defending against security threats.

Power Platform is Here! Introducing the Dynamics 365 and Power Platform Bug Bounty Program

Wednesday, October 13, 2021

Microsoft is excited to announce the addition of Power Platform to the newly rebranded Dynamics 365 and Power Platform Bounty Program. Through this expanded program, we encourage researchers to discover and report high impact security vulnerabilities they may find in the new Power Platform scope to help protect customers. We offer awards up to $20,000 USD for eligible submissions.

Announcing the Launch of the Azure SSRF Security Research Challenge

Thursday, August 19, 2021

Microsoft is excited to announce the launch of a new, three-month security research challenge under the Azure Security Lab initiative. The Azure Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) Research Challenge invites security researchers to discover and share high impact SSRF vulnerabilities in Microsoft Azure. Qualified submissions are eligible for bounty rewards up to $60,000 USD, with additional awards for identifying innovative or novel attack patterns.

Introducing Bounty Awards for Teams Mobile Applications Security Research

Monday, July 19, 2021

We are pleased to announce the addition of Microsoft Teams mobile applications to the Microsoft Applications Bounty Program. Through the expanded program we welcome researchers from across the globe to seek out and disclose any high impact security vulnerabilities they may find in Teams mobile applications to help secure customers. Rewards up to $30,000 USD are available for eligible submissions.

Introducing Bounty Awards for Teams Desktop Client Security Research

Wednesday, March 24, 2021

Partnering with the security research community is an important part of Microsoft’s holistic approach to defending against security threats. As much of the world has shifted to working from home in the last year, Microsoft Teams has enabled people to stay connected, organized, and collaborate remotely. Microsoft and security researchers across the planet continue to partner to help secure customers and the technologies we use for remote collaboration.

Security Analysis of CHERI ISA

Wednesday, October 14, 2020

Is it possible to get to a state where memory safety issues would be deterministically mitigated? Our quest to mitigate memory corruption vulnerabilities led us to examine CHERI (Capability Hardware Enhanced RISC Instructions), which provides memory protection features against many exploited vulnerabilities, or in other words, an architectural solution that breaks exploits.

Concluding the Azure Sphere Security Research Challenge, Microsoft Awards $374,300 to Global Security Research Community

Tuesday, October 06, 2020

The Azure Sphere Security Research Challenge brought together 70 researchers from 21 countries to help secure Azure Sphere customers and expand Microsoft’s partnerships with the global IoT security research community. During the three-month Azure Sphere Security Research Challenge, researchers surfaced 20 Critical or Important severity security vulnerabilities, with Microsoft awarding $374,300 in bounty awards for 16 bounty eligible reports.