Google has published the Google Play Security Reward Program to urge security researchers to come forward about security issues in popular applications on the Google Play Store. The company has used the HackerOne platform, security researchers will be able to report issues directly to the developers and once it has been addressed, the researchers will receive a reward from Google Play.
According to Google:
The Google Play Security Reward Program recognizes the contributions of security researchers who invest their time and effort in helping us make apps on Google Play more secure. All Google’s apps are included and developers of popular Android apps are invited to opt-in to the program.
Google will give a reward of $1,000 based on the vulnerability criteria, the company said that more criteria may be appended in the future and more scope for rewards.
Until now, there are a limited number of apps have been joined to Google Play Security Reward Program, including Alibaba, Dropbox, Duolingo, Line, SnapChat, Headspace, Mail.ru and Tinder.
Google wish that this program will assist app developers to keep security issues out of their apps, which has been a problem on Android for a while now.