Wickr is offering $100,000 to anyone who manages to identify a critical vulnerability in the encrypted messaging application of the same name that it has developed.
The Wickr app for Android and iPhone is designed to effectively protect users' phones and preserve the privacy of electronic communications.
The $100,000 reward puts the small company in the same category as giant companies like Google, Facebook and Microsoft, which offer significant rewards to security researchers for finding dangerous bugs that could compromise user data.
The app has already been thoroughly vetted by Wickr, and the challenge is great: Veracode, a company that performs security audits on apps, and Stroz Friedberg, a company specializing in advanced digital forensics, have also evaluated the software, in addition to independent security researchers.
Companies benefit from vulnerability bounty programs because they provide an incentive for a large number of experts to test their applications. In many cases, these programs are a better investment than hiring full-time staff for the same purpose.
