How To Run Bug Bounty Program Successfully ?

According to the Insurance Information Institute, on average, companies lose $188,400 annually due to cybercrime. Don't let that keep you in the same category of company in this year. Buckle up and successfully run your bug bounty program, which will help protect your platform from future cyber attacks.

If you have gone through our previous blogs, "All you need to know about the bug bounty program" and "Understanding the purpose of the bug bounty program " then you must  want to know how to run the bug bounty program successfully.  

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Bug Bounty Program : A Quick Overview

‍Bug bounty program is a crowdsourced testing program that rewards ethical hackers for finding vulnerabilities .The bug bounty program gives access to security researchers from all over the world to discover vulnerabilities or bugs in the system. Bug bounties are becoming an increasingly common way for organisations to mitigate vulnerabilities in their systems.

When you get more eyes looking at your application all of the time on a regular basis ,you will notice more bug being discovered and fixed, making your application more secure. That is why organisations are preferencing bug bounty programmes (public or private) in place of other crowdsourced testing methods.

Now you will say that you have heard about bug bounty program, but what are public and private bug bounty programs? Don't worry, I will tell you 

In the public bug bounty program Anyone from around the world can participate in the program, but only a limited number of researchers can participate in the private bug bounty program. Both programmes have their own use cases as per the requirements of an organization.

Lets move to the next part.

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Bug Bounty Cycle

‍1. Bug bounty brief

Communication is the key to the success of any bug bounty program. Therefore, the company will create a bug bounty brief that includes terms of engagement for researchers, pricing tiers, and other information. This brief helps the ethical hacker understand the flow of the bug bounty program.

2.Program launch

When the bug bounty brief is complete, the company posts it on the bug bounty platform page, marking the official launch of the program. Next, marketing for the program also needs to be done to attract various ethical hackers from around the world.

3. Start of the program

After the program is launched, participants begin to find and report bugs in the software. Researchers are required to provide a complete bug report to the Organizer, including instructions on how to exploit the discovered vulnerabilities.

4.Validation by Triage team

Triage team, what is it ?

Every bug bounty platform has its own internal cybersecurity team, which is known as the "Tirage Team".They are mainly responsible for verifying whether the bugs reported by participant researchers are accurate or not.

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5. Fixing the bugs‍

When the Tirage team approves a bug, the organisation receives a detailed report on how the bug was fixed.Then the organisation pays the researcher who found the bug; additionally, they also get recognition on the platform.

Want to Run Bug Bounty Program Successfully ,Keep it In Mind !

‍1.Decide platform wisely 

For running a bug bounty program successfully, it is important to choose the right bug bounty platform.

Because there are various factors like pricing, hackers' engagement, community, disclosure agreements, and payment process, that matter the most during the running of a program. So, after looking at these factors, you need to decide on a bug bounty platform.

2.Define Scope and Reward

There must be an organizational objective and scope to launch a bug bounty program. It may differ from other organizations as per their requirements. The objective of the program determines why they are starting the program and what they mainly want to achieve. There are many decisions to be made, including whether the bug bounty program should be public or private, the reward structure for bugs, and other rules and regulations.

3.Increase ethical hacker participation 

Every crowdsourcing platform has more access to skilled ethical hackers and researchers. Therefore, it is very important to maintain the engagement of white-hat hackers on the platform. Maximizing engagement not only helps bonding among hackers but also provides more scope for community engagement. This will encourage security researchers to participate in the bug bounty platform as well as increase their social reputation outside the community.

4.Prioritizing Vulnerabilities

When hackers report vulnerabilities, it is necessary to decide which ones are most important as there will be many submissions during the program.

Every organization knows the value of time and resources. So, they try to prioritize the vulnerabilities according to their level (vulnerable or critical level) as it takes a lot of time to investigate, debug and fix bugs.

5.Program Marketing

Marketing is the backbone of any event. It helps in communication between the organizer and the participant, without which the information will not reach the right people. Therefore, marketing the program is essential if you want to be successful and encourage more ethical hackers and researchers around the world to participate in bug bounties. In order to spread awareness and attract talented participants, it needs to generate curiosity among the audience about the event and its information.

Bug bounty platform, such as Pentabug, can assist you in discovering and securing critical security flaws at a low cost.‍

6.Time management and response

Team accountability helps to build trust among ethical hackers. Also, it helps in building better communication and engagement during the event. Therefore, the team needs to be attentive and responsive while validating bugs. After verification of the vulnerability, according to the rules of the program, there should be a quick release of the bounty. All these activities help in increasing the success rate of the bug bounty program and take the platform to new heights.‍

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Why you need Pentabug?

‍Pentabug is one the premium crowdsourced security testing and responsible disclosure platform where you get security testing by hundreds of highly experienced and vetted security professionals/researchers from around the globe.

Contact us at hello@pentabug.com to launch your bug bounty program today and defend the black hat hackers from compromising your organisation security.

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