Facebook is openly encouraging and incentivizing hackers to break the site’s security. Anyone who can find a bug might earn a $500 – $40,000 “bug bounty” with no charges pressed.
But should Facebook have checked with its users first?
Marcus Krecji is among the users that are not so sure this is a good idea:
“Facebook will pay a hacker $500 to hack the security system of the site, and report the bug that allowed it. And promise that charges wont be filed..OK.. that might be okay for an “honest” hacker, but how many of those do we know?” he wrote.
And he’s not alone. A quick search of Facebook statuses reveals hundreds of users skeptical about their own safety on a platform where hacking is welcomed.
“Just found out Facebook is paying people to hack it. Be sure this will be successful, and take appropriate steps to protect anything sensitive,” wrote Eric Caves, warning friends.
“Isn’t it funny that Facebook is paying people to hack into our accounts,” wrote Christine Mitins Bedore, adding “be careful.” “…This could be the problem we’ve been having,” wrote Bob Pearson regarding recent hacks on his own and friends’ accounts.
His friends replied that the news did not make them feel safe.
Many users are concerned about hackers using this immunity to break into their personal pages with no questions asked. However, Facebook’s Security Research page states that the network would prefer hackers avoid privacy violations:
“If you… make a good faith effort to avoid privacy violations, destruction of data and interruption or degradation of our service during your research, we will not bring any lawsuit against you.”
