Facebook Pays Out $40,000 in ‘Bug Bounties'

Facebook has begun issuing a "bug bounty," or money to find flaws in the social network, and has now paid out $40,000 in the last three weeks.

The program was started July 29 to held find bugs in Facebook's system and the social network reportedly pays a minimum of $500 for each technical report -- this isn't merely just a report of a problem, but what is wrong with the code to make it that way. This "whitehat portal" will pay up to $5,000 for a "really good report," Joe Sullivan, Facebook's chief security officer wrote on the Facebook blog. One person has already received $7,000 from Facebook.

After doing a little math, and looking Facebook's whitehat page, we see that 48 security research teams have been thanked. If one received $7,000, then we divide the remaining $33,000 by 47 and get an average payment of $702.12 per team (although almost all were individuals.) While that may not be big money, it will definitely keep coders in fast food and Mountain Dew.

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