Microsoft Offers Bounties for Uncovered Vulnerabilities in Windows 8.1

Microsoft is launching its own security bounty program, offering bounties up to $100,000 for “truly novel exploitation techniques” that expose security issues in the Windows 8.1 Preview. The company will also pay up to $11,000 for Internet Explorer 11 vulnerabilities and up to $50,000 for “defensive ideas that accompany a qualifying Mitigation Bypass submission,” Tech Crunch reports.

Microsoft has resisted this move for a while, but a statement from the company says it made the shift “in order to learn about these issues earlier and to increase the win-win between Microsoft’s customers and the security researcher community.”