In brief: Singapore government launches new bug bounty challenge with HackerOne

HackerOne, the leading hacker-powered security platform, today announced it will partner with the Government Technology Agency of Singapore (GovTech) and the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore to work with local and overseas hackers on a government bug bounty initiative to further protect Singapore citizens and help secure public-facing government systems.

Following the success of a bug bounty program with the Singapore Ministry of Defense (MINDEF) earlier this year, this is HackerOne’s second bug bounty program with the Singapore government. The bug bounty initiative will offer a select group of local bug bounty hackers a monetary reward for reporting valid vulnerabilities to GovTech so they can be safely resolved.

Source: HackerOne

The initiative will run for three weeks until next month, and will seek out security flaws in five public-facing online systems and websites.

While the available prizes haven’t been disclosed, HackerOne’s earlier program with MINDEF saw a total of US$14,750 in bounties handed out to 17 hackers, with the highest reward at US$2,000.

San Francisco-based HackerOne has also run a bug bounty program for Grab, offering hackers prizes of up to US$10,000. Its other clients include government departments in the US and the EU, as well as corporations like General Motors, Google, Intel, Lufthansa, and Starbucks.

Singapore is on cybersecurity high alert following a high-profile cyber attack earlier this year which saw the personal data of more than 1.5 million patients of healthcare provider SingHealth – including the country’s prime minister – accessed and copied by assailants.