A program in which an organization pays security researchers for responsibly reporting vulnerabilities — turns the global researcher community into an extension of the internal security team.
Bug Bounty programs publish scope (which systems are in-scope, which attack techniques are allowed), payout schedules (often $500 to $50K+ per vulnerability by severity), and a disclosure process. Researchers find issues, report them privately, and get paid if confirmed. Run via platforms like HackerOne and Bugcrowd or in-house. Bug bounties find issues that internal security and penetration testing miss because the researcher pool is larger, more diverse, and economically motivated.
Launching a bug bounty program with $1K-$25K payouts that surfaces 30 actionable vulnerabilities in the first 90 days, including one critical RCE that internal security and two prior pentests had missed.
Bug Bounty is the most cost-effective security tool for any company with meaningful internet exposure — the alternative is paying researchers nothing and hoping they tell you (they often won't).
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