Why Does Bug Bounty Culture Matter?

Cybersecurity is a fundamental building block for a company’s success. Traditionally, having a cybersecurity team on its own doesn’t guarantee flawless outcomes. Work done across different areas of the IT sector can introduce various security vulnerabilities.

When security weaknesses materialize — especially when customer data is affected — companies suffer serious damage. These kinds of incidents can drive customers away, leading to a drop in demand for the company’s services and products. For this reason, it’s important for companies to build more secure systems, train their employees, and protect their customers.

Internal Bug Bounty Programs

Internal bug bounty programs are built around rewarding employees who discover security vulnerabilities, and they create a valuable security culture for a company. However, this kind of approach is often not embraced at large enterprises in particular, and employees who report vulnerabilities can be met with reactions like “Is that really your job?”

The main damage this attitude causes to companies includes:

• Employees may become afraid to report vulnerabilities, which increases the risk of damage originating from outside the organization.
• Failing to report vulnerabilities can let other employees unknowingly stumble upon and misuse those same weaknesses.
• Malicious employees can exploit these vulnerabilities to commit fraud.

Yet these risks can be headed off by rewarding the employees or people who find security vulnerabilities. This is in fact one of the most important benefits of bug bounty programs. I believe that, just as remote work took hold during the pandemic, a similar shift will eventually happen in cybersecurity in our country too. With the establishment of the Cybersecurity Directorate, bringing this kind of practice under regulation would be extremely valuable.

External Bug Bounty Programs

Major tech companies — Apple, Microsoft, and Google, for example — run public bug bounty programs. Winners in these programs get a cash reward as well as a shot at having their name added to a “Hall of Fame.” In our country, Trendyol is one of the pioneers in this space, and you can find the details here.

However, many large companies in our country still keep their distance from this kind of program and instead work with closed, internal-only systems. Yet it shouldn’t be forgotten that these kinds of programs, by involving both employees and outside security researchers, can bring companies major benefits.