Facebook hands out Visa debit cards to white hat hackers

In an effort to squash bugs and stomp out security exploits, Facebook has begun handing out Visa debit cards to white hat hackers–or “security researchers”–for any bugs and/or exploits they’re able to find.

Researchers can receive a “White Hat Bug Bounty” Visa debit card that acts just as a credit card would. The more bugs and exploits hackers are able to sniff out, the more Facebook will refill the debit card, with a minimum payment said to be $500.

Interestingly, it doesn’t look like there’s a maximum payment, so security researchers could potentially be looking at a significant reward if a serious vulnerability is spotted. There is, of course, a catch to all of this however.

In order for white hat hackers to receive their payout (and not be sued), they must agree not to leak the vulnerability within a “reasonable amount of time” (leaking vulnerabilities is a common last resort method among hackers to force a company to address any vulnerabilities they’re able to find), and must make a “good faith effort” in avoiding privacy violations.

ZDNet reports that the highest bounty paid so far is $5,000, and has been paid out several times. To date, Facebook says that they’ve received help from 84 different researchers.

via ZDNet