Microsoft Upgrades .NET Bounty Program with Rewards Up to $40,000

Microsoft has significantly enhanced its .NET bounty program, announcing substantial updates that expand the program’s scope, streamline award structures, and provide greater incentives for cybersecurity researchers. 

The enhanced program now offers rewards of up to $40,000 USD for identifying critical vulnerabilities within the .NET ecosystem, representing a major commitment to strengthening the security framework of one of the world’s most widely used development platforms.

Key Takeaways
1. Rewards up to $40,000 for critical vulnerabilities with complete exploits.
2. Covers all .NET versions, ASP.NET Core, F#, Blazor, and GitHub Actions.
3. Two-tier system rewards complete reports with exploits higher than theoretical submissions.

Expanded Program Scope and Coverage

The updated .NET Bounty Program introduces comprehensive coverage across Microsoft’s development ecosystem. 

The program now encompasses all supported versions of .NET and ASP.NET, extending its reach to include adjacent technologies such as F# programming language and supported versions of ASP.NET Core for .NET Framework. 

Additionally, the scope includes templates provided with supported .NET and ASP.NET Core versions, as well as GitHub Actions within the .NET and ASP.NET Core repositories.

This expansion reflects Microsoft’s recognition of the interconnected nature of modern development frameworks, where vulnerabilities in one component can potentially impact entire application ecosystems. 

The inclusion of Blazor and Aspire technologies within the bounty scope demonstrates Microsoft’s commitment to securing emerging web development frameworks and cloud-native application platforms. 

Security researchers can now target a broader range of attack vectors, from traditional server-side vulnerabilities to client-side security flaws in modern single-page applications.

Microsoft has implemented a tiered reward structure that correlates award amounts with vulnerability severity and report quality. 

The new framework categorizes security impacts into specific types, including Remote Code Execution, Elevation of Privilege, Security Feature Bypass, Remote Denial of Service, Spoofing or Tampering, and Information Disclosure. 

Critical Remote Code Execution vulnerabilities with complete exploits can earn researchers the maximum $40,000 reward, while important-level vulnerabilities of the same category receive $30,000.

The program introduces a binary classification system for report quality, distinguishing between “complete” submissions that include fully functional exploits and “not complete” submissions that present theoretical scenarios. 

This approach encourages researchers to provide actionable intelligence that enables Microsoft’s security teams to understand and remediate vulnerabilities effectively. 

The award structure also addresses documentation security issues, offering rewards for identifying insecure coding practices in official documentation that could mislead developers.

This strategic enhancement of the .NET Bounty Program underscores Microsoft’s proactive approach to cybersecurity, leveraging the global research community to identify and address potential security vulnerabilities before they can be exploited maliciously.

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