Feeling accomplished today? Prepare to have that state of mind disappear.
Before even reaching the age required to actually create a Facebook account, a 10-year-old has uncovered a major flaw in Instagram. Not only that, but the social network has granted the intrepid hacker $10,000 for his hard work.
Jani (the boy’s parents withheld his last name) found a way to access Instagram’s servers and delete a test posted by an Instagram user, according to Finish news site lltalehti.
The money was given to Jani as part of Facebook’s bug bounty program, which offers monetary rewards to people who find flaws in the platform’s digital infrastructure, including Facebook-owned Instagram and WhatsApp.
According to his father, Jani and the boy’s twin brother have uncovered security flaws in various websites, but the Facebook flaw is the first one large enough to net the pair any money.
Google offers a similar security rewards system for uncovering bugs. In 2015 alone, over 13,000 submissions from researchers were sent to the social network, with only 526 actually being valid reports. In terms of actual dollar amounts, $936,000 has been paid out to 2010 researchers in 2015, with an average $1,780 being awarded per submission.
[source]lltalehti[/source]
MobileSyrup may earn a commission from purchases made via our links, which helps fund the journalism we provide free on our website. These links do not influence our editorial content. Support us here.
