Cardano Foundation’s promotional bug bounty program commences

• The updated program to identify vulnerabilities started on Monday and will run for six weeks
• The lowest bugs spotted will attract a reward of $800 and the critical ones $20,000

Cardano Foundation, the non-profit entity that is mainly responsible for Cardano’s path, last week announced the doubling of rewards for users that identify bugs on the network. The Swiss-based organisation shared an update on Hackerone that hackers who spot potential vulnerabilities will pocket double the bounty offered previously.

“Hello hackers, we are excited to let you know that we are running a promotion for the next 6 weeks on all assets, it will run from Monday 14th February 2022 until Friday 25th March 2022 and our payouts for valid reports have DOUBLED,” the Cardano Foundation Team wrote.

The promotion is part of the bug bounty program created last August. It represents efforts by the independent entity to incentivise hackers into spotting possible loopholes that can be exploited at the expense of the network.

Reward amount hinges on the threat presented by the bug

The program features a tier system that defines how much bounty the hackers are rewarded based on the level of danger posed by the bugs they unearth.

The lowest level consisting of low threat bugs under the Cardano node has a prize money of $800. Identification of medium-level bugs will see hackers get $4,000. Bugs that present a ‘high’ vulnerability have a bounty reward of $10,000. Hackers identifying vulnerabilities considered critical will get $20,000.

The rewards for spotting possible exploits in the Cardano wallet are slightly lower. Low- and medium-level bugs have bounties of $600 and $2,000, respectively. Those perceived as high and critical bring in $6,000 and $15,000.

The program’s rules require that hackers submit reports bearing detailed steps to qualify for the bounty.

“Please provide detailed reports with reproducible steps. If the report is not detailed enough to reproduce the issue, the issue will not be eligible for a reward. Submit one vulnerability per-report, unless you need to chain vulnerabilities to provide impact.”

Towards the end of last year, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson revealed a number of developments that would come to the ecosystem. Last month, Hoskinson outlined even more advancements. The Cardano Foundation, through its CEO Frederik Gregaard, also shared its targets for the year.

It adds up that the foundation is also incentivising white-hat hackers to spot bugs as it looks to make the network even secure ahead of the developments coming to the network.

Though Cardano has already seen a handful of developments so far, its native token ADA has continued slacking. Its market capital has shrunk and is now sitting at seventh place in the rankings of the top crypto-assets.