Out of 127 countries, India’s security research community has made the largest contribution to Facebook’s bug bounty program. Over 200 white hat hackers from India regularly find bugs on Facebook and report them to the social network. That’s more than any other country and as a result, Facebook has paid about $730,000 USD to Indian white hat hackers through its bug bounty program, the highest amount paid to any country’s arsenal of researchers. A white hat hacker is a security researcher who attempts to break into protected systems to expose vulnerabilities and strengthen security by reporting them. 

Facebook announced the contributions of India’s security research community in a blog post last week. Adam Ruddermann, a technical program manager on the Facebook Bug Bounty team, praised the country’s contributions to the safety and security of Facebook’s massive user base: “Facebook receives more and more high-impact bugs from India each year, reflecting the growing sophistication and technical capabilities of the country’s engineering schools and cybersecurity programs.”

Ruddermann also took the opportunity to elaborate on the social network’s bug bounty program, including the calculations they use to decide how much money is paid out for specific bugs. The amount varies based on risk, particularly if the vulnerability impacts its end users. Additionally, they account for the technical skills and resources required to carry out a successful attack based on the discovered vulnerability. 

He also provided a warning to potential white hat hackers and researchers: “Do not move into exploiting the bugs you find or your reports could become ineligible for a bounty.” Looking at the rules of Facebook’s white hat hacker program, one can imagine what ambitious hackers have tried in the past. One provision states, “Do not interact with other accounts without consent (e.g. do not test against Mark Zuckerberg’s account).” It’s a safe bet some enterprising hackers have tried to inflitrate the social network founder’s account in the past.