Google Paid Out $458,000 at Live Hacking Event

Google handed out $458,000 in bug bounty rewards at this year’s bugSWAT hacking event, held during the ESCAL8 conference in New Mexico. During the event, 38 top bug hunters participated in training, knowledge exchange, and live-hacking sessions targeting AI, Android, and Google Cloud, with 107 bug reports submitted over the three-day gathering.

The bugSWAT event accompanied the launch of Google’s AI Vulnerability Reward Program, offering rewards of up to $20,000 for vulnerabilities leading to victim account or data modifications. The ESCAL8 conference in New Mexico, held in early October, drew nearly 200 attendees, including bug hunters, CTF players, Key Opinion Formers, and students. Eight teams participated in Google’s Hackceler8 capture the flag event, selected from more than 250 teams that registered for the online qualification round. At the conference, Google also ran a two-day intro-level cybersecurity workshop called init.g(mexico), with over 60 students attending.