Telecommunication giant Safaricom has revealed a plan to reward ethical hackers.
The telecom operator targets students in tertiary institutions, cybersecurity forums, and innovations centers.
According to Business Daily, the move is aimed at promoting ethical hacking, which will lead to hackers responsibly disclosing bugs in Safaricom’s services and products.
The entity has partnered with HackerOne and will encourage people to responsibly and confidentially submit bugs that will be verified by HackerOne. If the verifier finds
that the bugs are real, it will forward the same to Safaricom for confirmation and payment.
“The reason for starting this program was to encourage hackers to report any bugs/vulnerabilities that they may find in Safaricom’s services and products to Safaricom in a confidential and ethical manner instead of exploiting them or disclosing them to the public,” said Thibaud Rerolle, Safaricom’s Technology Director, as quoted by Business Daily.
The Technology Director revealed that the award would range from Sh25,000 to Sh200,000.
The move follows an increase in cyber crimes in the country by 40% between 2015 and 2017. In 2015, Kenya lost Sh15.1 billion while in 2017 the amount rose to Sh21.1, according to Serianu report.
Safaricom also wants to discover bugs in their system to protect their clients.