Facebook has paid out $40,000 to independent hackers for spotting flaws in its website, three weeks after launching its “bug bounty” scheme.
The social networking group takes a “neighbourhood watch” approach of welcoming criticism from external security experts rather than punishing it.
“We realise . . . that there are many talented and well-intentioned security experts around the world who don’t work for Facebook,” wrote Joe Sullivan, Facebook’s chief security officer, on the company’s blog on Monday evening. “We established this bug bounty programme in an effort to recognise and reward these individuals for their good work and encourage others to join.”