Two years ago, we launched the
Security Rewards program. In its second year, we've seen great progress. We
received over 450 qualifying vulnerability reports from researchers and the
average pay per researcher jumped by 52.3%. On top of that, the total Android
Security Rewards payout doubled to $1.1 million dollars. Since it launched,
we've rewarded researchers over $1.5 million dollars.
Here are some of the highlights from the Android Security Rewards program's
second year:
- There were no payouts for the top reward for a complete remote exploit chain
leading to TrustZone or Verified Boot compromise, our highest award amount
possible. - We paid 115 individuals with an average of $2,150 per reward and $10,209 per
researcher. - We paid our top research team, C0RE Team,
over $300,000 for 118 vulnerability reports. - We paid 31 researchers $10,000 or more.
Thank you to all the amazing
who submitted complete
reports to us last year.
Improvements to Android Security Rewards program
We're constantly working to improve the Android Security Rewards program and
today we're making a few changes to all vulnerability reports filed after June
1, 2017.
Because every Android release includes more security protections and no
researcher has claimed the top reward for an exploit chains in 2 years, we're
excited to increase our top-line payouts for these exploits.
- Rewards for a remote exploit chain or exploit leading to TrustZone or
Verified Boot compromise increase from $50,000 to $200,000. - Rewards for a remote kernel exploit increase from $30,000 to
$150,000.
In addition to rewarding for vulnerabilities, we continue to work with the broad
and diverse Android ecosystem to protect users from issues reported through our
program. We collaborate with manufacturers to ensure that these issues are fixed
on their devices through monthly
have a majority of their deployed devices running a security update from the
last 90 days. This table shows the models with a majority of deployed devices
running a security update from the last two months:
| Manufacturer | Device |
|---|---|
| BlackBerry | PRIV |
| Fujitsu | F-01J |
| General Mobile | GM5 Plus d, GM5 Plus, General Mobile 4G Dual, General Mobile 4G |
| Gionee | A1 |
| Pixel XL, Pixel, Nexus 6P, Nexus 6, Nexus 5X, Nexus 9 | |
| LGE | LG G6, V20, Stylo 2 V, GPAD 7.0 LTE |
| Motorola | Moto Z, Moto Z Droid |
| Oppo | CPH1613, CPH1605 |
| Samsung | Galaxy S8+, Galaxy S8, Galaxy S7, Galaxy S7 Edge, Galaxy S7 Active, Galaxy S6 Active, Galaxy S5 Dual SIM, Galaxy C9 Pro, Galaxy C7, Galaxy J7, Galaxy On7 Pro, Galaxy J2, Galaxy A8, Galaxy Tab S2 9.7 |
| Sharp | Android One S1, 507SH |
| Sony | Xperia XA1, Xperia X |
| Vivo | Vivo 1609, Vivo 1601, Vivo Y55 |
Source: Google May 29th, 2017.
Thank you to everyone who helped make Android safer and stronger in the past
year. Together, we made a huge investment in security research that helps
Android users everywhere. If you want to get involved to make next year even
better, check out our detailed
Rules. For tips on how to submit complete reports, see
Hunter University.
