The invite-only Android Chipset Security Reward Programme (ACSRP) awarded $486,000 in 2022 and received over 700 valid security reports…reports Asian Lite News
Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Saturday said that the company awarded a record $12 million in bug bounties to more than 700 researchers in 2022, including the largest award in its bug bounty programme history.
The Android Vulnerability Reward Programme (VRP) had a record-breaking year in 2022 with $4.8 million in rewards and the highest paid report in Google VRP history of $605,000.
“Submitting an impressive 200+ vulnerabilities to the Android VRP, Aman Pandey of Bugsmirror remains one of our programme’s top researchers,” said Sarah Jacobus of Vulnerability Rewards Team at Google.
Since submitting their first report in 2019, Pandey reported more than 500 vulnerabilities to the programme.
The invite-only Android Chipset Security Reward Programme (ACSRP) awarded $486,000 in 2022 and received over 700 valid security reports.
Chrome VRP had another unparalleled year, receiving 470 valid and unique security bug reports, resulting in a total of $4 million of VRP rewards.
“Of the $4 million, $3.5 million was rewarded to researchers for 363 reports of security bugs in Chrome Browser and nearly $500,000 was rewarded for 110 reports of security bugs in ChromeOS,” informed Jacobus.
In August 2022, the company launched open source software (OSS) VRP to reward vulnerabilities in Google’s open source projects.
Since then, over 100 bug hunters have participated in the programme and were rewarded over $110,000, according to the company.
“We’ve awarded more than $250,000 in grants to over 170 security researchers,” it added.
Google lays off 100 robot workers
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, recently laid off 12,000 workers and even 100 robots that cleaned its cafeterias at its headquarters.
According to a Wired report, Alphabet’s ‘Everyday Robots’ project — an unit under Google’s experimental X laboratories — has been shut down by Google CEO Sundar Pichai.
It had trained 100 one-armed, wheeled robots to help clean the company’s cafeterias. Several of these robot prototypes were transported out of the lab and were doing useful duties throughout Google’s Bay Area facilities.
These robots used to clean tables as well as separate trash and recycling. The robots also helped keep conference rooms clean during the pandemic. With the robot division now shut off, some of its technology could be used for other divisions.
Alphabet has spent the last few years developing an integrated hardware and software system for learning, including the transfer of knowledge from the virtual to the actual world.
The robots slowly gained a greater grasp of the world around them and became more adept at executing ordinary activities, using a combination of machine learning techniques like reinforcement learning, collaborative learning, and learning from demonstration.
Meanwhile, in a bid to further cut costs, Google has even asked employees who return to work to share their work desks with a “partner” to maximise office space.
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