Facebook has paid out $40,000 to independent hackers for spotting flaws in its website, three weeks after launching its “bug bounty” scheme.
The social networking group takes a “neighbourhood watch” approach of welcoming criticism from external security experts rather than punishing it.
“We realise?.?.?.?that there are many talented and well-intentioned security experts around the world who don’t work for Facebook,” wrote Joe Sullivan, Facebook’s chief security officer, on the company’s blog on Monday evening. “We established this bug bounty -programme in an effort to recognise and reward these individuals for their good work and encourage others to join.”