Your Secrets Need a VDP, Not Just a Bug Bounty

Bug bounty programs are increasingly popular among companies as a means to enhance their security posture by enlisting a community of hackers to identify vulnerabilities, offering monetary rewards for reported issues. However, these programs can create significant challenges when used as substitutes for comprehensive Vulnerability Disclosure Policies (VDPs). Bug bounties often have restrictive scopes, opaque triage processes, and can be burdened by gatekeeping, which may lead to valid reports being ignored or rejected, potentially undermining security efforts. Moreover, the limited payouts can discourage thorough vulnerability reporting. GitGuardian highlights these issues through its experiences, emphasizing that bug bounty programs should complement, not replace, a public VDP that encourages open communication. They recommend maintaining accessible VDPs alongside bug bounty programs, ensuring critical reports can bypass platform restrictions, and advocate for including leaked credentials within program scopes to address the prevalent threat of credential-based attacks. Ultimately, they stress the importance of promoting and making vulnerability reporting channels visible to ensure effective communication.