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<keyword id="2505279" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="bug-bounties">Bug bounties</keyword> is the term used for monetary rewards that tech firms offer to geeks for spotting bugs, errors and security flaws that could lead to severe problems in case hackers spot them. 
 
Off lately, several Indian techies are getting more and more interested in these bug bounties. As per a report by one of the earliest crowd-sourcing companies called Bugcrowd, 28.2% of the hackers that signed up for bug bounty programmes until March were Indians, followed by US (24.4%), the UK (3.9%), Pakistan (3.5%) and Australia (2.4%). 
 
Bug bounties started in 1995, with Netscape announcing rewards to hackers who found bugs in its web browser. Since then, almost all the tech giants, be it Facebook, Google, Apple, Twitter or Yahoo!, have either launched their own programmes or hired with third-party companies to reward hackers who find bugs in their programmes. 
 
Not only IT companies, companies like General Motors, Khan Academy, Starbucks and United Airlines have also run bug bounty programmes, but these are rarely run by Indian companies, fearing security breach in case they have an inside look at their codes. 
 
Paytm, one of the few Indian companies that have run bug bounty programmes, says that open-sourcing security has resulted in more 'hack-proof ' systems. 
 
"While our internal testing teams are always on high alert, bug bounty programmes help us identify sporadic loopholes in our system, and fix them immediately," Sourabh Sharma, assistant vice-president at Paytm, told <a href="http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/software/indians-top-league-of-nerds-in-spotting-bugs-for-tech-companies/articleshow/53730568.cms">ET</a>. 
 
While bounties vary from $100 to $200,000 on the international front, Indian companies are very finicky when it comes to these rewards. "Instead of money payments, they send certificates or goodies - CDs, pen drives, T-shirts, etc. These are not lucrative enough," said Vikram Karthik, a Chennai-based ex-security researcher. "Some companies delay the payment and inform a week later that the specific vulnerability has already been reported," he added. 
 
<a href="https://cdn3.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/dOTSbh28VvCfhwXERInIvr4g03Q=/0x111:1200x786/1600x900/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/45809074/bug_bounty.0.0.jpg">Image source</a>

Bug bounties attracting Indians like never before companies

A balmy Saturday afternoon in Delhi’s Connaught Place. Cut to an up-market café in the Inner Circle. It’s too early for the evening’s party crowd. Young couples fill most seats, cooing sweet nothings. The smell of hookah lingers. My guest is a <keyword id="32574" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="hacker">hacker</keyword>. He recently took down an entire travel startup. Ever heard of <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=StayUncle&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">StayUncle</a>? Yeah, them. 
 
For the uninitiated, this New Delhi-based startup has tied up with hotels. Unmarried couples can rent rooms here for a duration as short as 8-10 hours. The idea here is to help them find affordable accommodation, minus the judgmental stares. 
 
My chap arrives. Nope, nothing like Hollywood. No hoodies, no hesitation, no mystery music in the background. He’s a 16 year old school kid. I offer him a seat, positively shocked. What followed would make for a killer film-script. 
 
“I got a call. He asked me to take down <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=StayUncle&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">StayUncle</a> and offered Rs. 5000 ($75) in return. I did it at 11 pm that night. 30 minutes in, I started reading about them (<keyword id="3320068" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="StayUncle">StayUncle</keyword>). It was a noble idea. I stopped the attack mid-way, and contacted Sanchit. The employer called me several times the next morning. I didn’t pick up his call ever again.” 
 This lad had taken down more sites than he can recall. I ask him how it feels to work as an online mercenary, accepting money from anonymous clients. “It’s common in the field of <keyword id="6357115" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="hacking">hacking</keyword>. My targets are usually individual sites. They run on free hosting. This was the first business site I took down.” 
 
While this may startle most of us, he says getting these 'assignments' isn't really tough, mentioning a forum where such work is readily available, <a href="http://hackforums.net/">HackForums</a>. It’s an online forum to connect with a '<a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=h4x0r">h4x0r</a>' (hacker). Drop in a message. Someone accepts your assignment. Once the job is done, you pay the money. This is one among hundreds of such forums, and it’s not even Darknet. 
 
“Everybody is anonymous. People are known only by their usernames. I typically never disclose my number. I just do my initial research, and quote the price. This guy asked if I was Indian, and then for my contact number.” 
 StayUncle founder-CEO <keyword id="3320069" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Sanchit-Sethi">Sanchit Sethi</keyword> confirms the incident. “It was 18th of April this year. I got a call from a hacker. He admitted to taking our site down, and that he was hired by one of our competitors. He said they might do it again.” 
 
Well, they did. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=StayUncle&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">StayUncle</a>’s website was pulled down by another brute-force attack a month and a half back. 
 
“We were going crazy. Finally, I asked help from one of my cousins, a senior tech guy. He found all our ports were shut down, our securities disabled. Thankfully, our database was safe. Somebody clearly hacked into our systems again”, Sethi says. 
 
This isn't the first time. App-based taxi hailing service <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Ola&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Ola</a> was allegedly hacked by a group by the name ‘TeamUnknown’. <keyword id="6354720" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Ola">Ola</keyword> denied its database was ever breached and that any hacker group ever contacted them. It did admit though that the test server, which is used internally, had been hacked. In recent months, hackers have exploited security flaws in several other Indian startups including online restaurant search provider <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Zomato&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Zomato</a> and music streaming app Gaana. Most Indian startups still remain apprehensive of ethical hackers. 
 
My guest says brute-force attacks don’t help now. “A <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Paytm&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Paytm</a>, Flipkart or <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Snapdeal&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Snapdeal</a> has multiple servers. If one goes down, the other takes off. That’s server rotation. If you don’t have a lot of servers, you can’t take down theirs”, he observes. 
 
The hour seemed to pass in the blink of an eye. My guest stood up to leave. We shook hands and parted. 
 
A simple Google search will reveal a breeding ground for script kiddies. Most have little knowledge of the tools they use or how they work. These are ready-made and easily-found tools on the internet that can do some serious harm. The more hardcore ones can dedicate hours a day scanning the internet for computers that are vulnerable to a security hole. They can then exploit that and use what is known as a 'rootkit' to give them 'root' (or total control) over a computer. 
 
With the likes of Ola and Paytm waking up to the value of bug bounty programmes, denial seems to be in the air. As evening fell, I couldn’t help but feel worried. 
 
In an age where you can set up shop at the touch of a button, that’s all it takes to bring down one as well. A guy, a laptop, and 5000 bucks. 
 
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