Bug bounty and vulnerability disclosure programs allow organizations to incentivize good faith third-party security researchers to identify otherwise unknown security vulnerabilities.
By creating a formal ‘bug bounty’ program, organizations can gather vulnerability details from external security researchers in a controlled way and standardize their responses.
Continue reading below to:
- Understand the information security definition of ‘vulnerability’
- Learn more about bug bounty or vulnerability disclosure programs
- See why bug bounty programs are growing in prevalence
- Understand vulnerability management versus disclosure programs
- Learn vulnerability disclosure program design and implementation steps
- Determine if a bug bounty program is right for your organization
What is an Information Security Vulnerability?
First things first, what is an information security vulnerability?
Vulnerabilities are gaps that create weaknesses in an organization’s systems or products that may expose the organization to attack. An attacker must take further action to exploit a vulnerability and create an actual incident.
In its purest form, the term vulnerability is used to describe a weakness for which no known fix exists. On the other hand, if you discover a weakness in a system and the company who sells the system informs you that changing a particular setting (e.g., disable write access) will eliminate the weakness, that would not be a true vulnerability because a known fix exists. However, in today’s context of businesses, bug bounties and vulnerability disclosures, the term vulnerability can be used to describe any weakness—with or without a known fix.
Vulnerability Disclosure Programs
Vulnerability disclosure programs, also known as bug bounty programs, focus on identifying cyber vulnerabilities.
A vulnerability disclosure program is a process for inviting third parties to find and report cybersecurity vulnerabilities in a sponsoring organization’s software, hardware or online services.
Bug bounty programs seek to: address and reduce cybersecurity risks by gathering input from a broad array of external security researchers with different skills and perspectives; identify cyber vulnerabilities before attackers have an opportunity to discover and exploit them; and
channel vulnerability information directly to the sponsoring organization in a non-public, highly confidential and controlled manner.
By employing external ethical hackers (security researchers), organizations can learn a lot about their environment and what information and data may be at risk, including:
- Software or hardware design defects or programming flaws.
- Poor administrative processes, such as inadequate access controls or leaked data.
- Weak passwords and other poor security practices or system configurations, such as:
- unprotected communication channels;
- unsecured application programming interfaces; or
- improperly configured security tools.
Vulnerability disclosure programs offer a unique method to review and assess information security. The use and acceptance of these programs by a wide variety of organizations in various sectors are growing both domestically and abroad. For the information security community, however, decades-old good security practices have included soliciting outside input to bang on a system to test and improve your security protections.
Why Are Bug Bounty and Vulnerability Disclosure Programs Needed?
As online environments become more complex, how organizational, employee and customer data is shared, managed and stored must remain secure. Security is never complete; smart developers and companies recognize the fact that security must be evaluated, tested and improved indefinitely.
Organizations must recognize that cyber incidents involve exploitation of a vulnerability, or in other words, actual or reasonably suspected:
- Loss or theft of confidential or personal information;
- Unauthorized use, disclosure, processing, or acquisition of or access to confidential or personal information; or
- Unauthorized access to or use of, inability to access, loss or theft of, or malicious infection of an organization’s IT systems.
As such, vulnerability disclosure programs help organizations prioritize security in a safe and effective manner, without displacing current employee tasks or responsibilities. Bug bounty programs offer expert insights without investing in new departments and headcount and the guarantee that top-notch security experts are reviewing your security posture in real-time.
As the number of threat actors continues to rise and exploration and data breaches are incentivized with ransomware, bug bounty programs can help your organization stay one step ahead of cyber threats.
Important note! Vulnerability disclosure programs are not a substitute for sound core cybersecurity practices. Be sure to review your incident response plan and ensure your organization is prepared to respond to any cyber attack based on the needs of your organization according to its size; types of data, products or services; and industry.
Vulnerability Management Versus Disclosure Programs
Successful organizations identify and manage cyber vulnerabilities in multiple ways, including by supporting distinct vulnerability management and vulnerability disclosure programs.
But keep in mind, general cyber vulnerability management programs differ from vulnerability disclosure programs; specifically:
- General cyber vulnerability management programs typically use internal or contracted resources to help organizations identify, track, and remediate or at least mitigate publicly known or internally identified vulnerabilities.
- Vulnerability disclosure programs allow organizations to leverage third-party community expertise to discover additional vulnerabilities beyond those that they have already identified and addressed.
Some organizations choose to implement vulnerability disclosure programs to enhance their cybersecurity posture or reputation. General cyber vulnerability management, however, is a core element of any information security program. For more information on managing cyber vulnerabilities, see Practice Note, Cybersecurity Tech Basics: Vulnerability Management: Overview.
Bug Bounty and Vulnerability Disclosure Program Design and Implementation Steps
Developing and implementing a bug bounty and vulnerability disclosure program requires five main steps.
Specifically, sponsoring organizations should:
- Designate a program owner appropriate to their organizational culture and structure. The chief information security officer (CISO), information security coordinator, or equivalent often manages the program and seeks legal counsel as necessary.
- Define the program’s scope and objectives. Organizations should recognize that they can start with an initial pilot program and expand or reduce coverage over time.
- Decide on the program incentives. Many organizations provide some form of recognition for finders, ranging from public recognition or thanks to financial incentives.
- Develop and publish a clear vulnerability disclosure policy. Be sure to include legal counsel to help minimize risks and address potential liability issues by having a clear contract outlining the rules of the road for participation in the program, including:
- Time period the program will be open
- Who may participate
- What’s fair game vs. off limits
- Acceptable testing methods
- Secure methods for submitting bug reports, and
- Vulnerabilities that qualify for the program
- Develop, implement, and maintain a vulnerability response and handling process. It is critical to build trust and credibility with the security researcher community. Simple things like adhering to the commitments in the published policies and respectfully managing their program-related communications can go a long way.
Is A Bug Bounty Program Right For Your Organization?
Bug bounty programs are growing in popularity and prevalence but do you really need one?
Sponsoring organizations run vulnerability disclosure programs for many reasons. If any of the points below draw parallels to your current organizational goals and objectives, a bug bounty program might be the right fit for you.
Organizations interested in initiating a bug bounty program often seek to:
- Establish a reputation as a trusted brand, demonstrated by their willingness to open their systems to outside security researchers.
- Create market differentiation against competitors that others may perceive as less secure.
- Improve existing security measures within the organization by getting a second look from external experts.
- Reduce the risk of malicious threat actors finding, exploiting or publicizing security vulnerabilities.
- Protect the organization from unwanted business interruptions, unwanted data leakage, and undesirable publicity.
However, bug bounty programs require a certain level of in-house expertise and bandwidth to administer the program. For organizations with emerging cybersecurity and privacy programs, a bug bounty program is probably not appropriate. In addition, if most of a company’s IT infrastructure is controlled by third-party vendors (e.g., cloud providers), the company needs to consider other issues before launching a program.
Why Choose ZeroDay Law?
ZeroDay Law specializes in incident response planning according to each organization's unique risks, helping in-house counsel and businesses understand and improve their current state of readiness as they face growing cybersecurity threats and evolving legal obligations.
Our team of experts offers cybersecurity law, privacy law and cyber risk compliance services to ensure organizations are prepared to expertly manage the legal and technical requirements that come before, during and after a cyber attack.
Contact us today to learn more about how ZeroDay Law can help protect your business.