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Access "Private market growing for zero-day exploits and vulnerabilities "

Robert Lemos, Contributor Published: 27 Nov 2012

In 2011, vulnerability researcher Luigi Auriemma discovered more than six dozen vulnerabilities in a variety of enterprise software packages, selling each software bug for a modest bounty to the Zero Day Initiative, a group set up by TippingPoint, and now a subsidiary of Hewlett-Packard. A well-known white-market buyer for software vulnerabilities, HP’s TippingPoint, uses the information to protect its customers while working with the vendor whose software is affected to close the security hole. While the company does not disclose how much it pays researchers, payments typically fall between $1,000 and $5,000, with most less than $2,000, according to sources. Yet, with penetration testers, industrial spies, law enforcement, intelligence agencies and the military all looking for exploits to undisclosed flaws to fuel their cyber-operations, such modest bounties are no longer the incentive they once were. Vulnerability researchers, once starved for a market for their security flaws, now have new options. Aureimma, for example, partnered with another researcher,... Access >>>

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