Apple Raises Bug Bounty Rewards to $5 Million, Expands Security Program

Apple has just raised the stakes in its ongoing battle for cybersecurity supremacy. The company has officially supercharged its Apple Security Bounty Program, offering researchers and ethical hackers a record-breaking payout of up to $5 million for uncovering critical vulnerabilities, bypasses, or exploit chains that mirror the complexity of mercenary spyware.

This marks a massive leap from its original rewards and signals Apple’s growing commitment to hardening its ecosystem against elite-level threats.

Originally launched in 2020, Apple’s bug bounty initiative has already distributed $35 million across more than 800 security researchers worldwide, with the average reward hovering around $43,750. Now, the company is going further – both in scope and generosity. According to Apple’s recent blog post, the top-tier reward for uncovering advanced exploit chains capable of achieving spyware-like goals has doubled to $2 million. However, that’s just the beginning. Combined with bonus payouts for identifying Lockdown Mode bypasses and flaws in beta software, a single discovery could now earn a researcher an astonishing $5 million.

Among other standout updates, Apple is offering a $100,000 bounty for finding a complete Gatekeeper bypass – a macOS security layer that normally prevents unverified code from executing. Researchers who manage to uncover ways to gain unauthorized access to iCloud accounts can also bag $1 million, while those who demonstrate wireless proximity exploits – attacks carried out via nearby devices using any radio protocol – can claim another $1 million reward.

The expanded program now even includes payouts of up to $300,000 for discovering “one-click WebKit sandbox escapes,” a critical vulnerability that could potentially compromise Apple’s browser engine, Safari. This update underlines Apple’s acknowledgment that even well-fortified systems can harbor complex weaknesses, particularly in web-facing and wireless components.

Over time, the bounty program has been instrumental in bolstering Apple’s defense infrastructure. Key advancements such as Lockdown Mode, which limits attack vectors by disabling link previews, attachments, and risky scripts, were partly shaped by insights from the researcher community. Apple’s enhanced Safari security architecture and Memory Integrity Enforcement – a hardware-level feature in chips like the A19 – now serve as additional safeguards against memory corruption and advanced exploit techniques.

Apple emphasizes that thanks to these layered defenses, system-level iOS exploits are now extremely rare and almost exclusively the domain of well-funded mercenary spyware developers. These attacks, costing millions to engineer, target only a tiny fraction of high-profile individuals. Yet, by continuing to open its ecosystem to global researchers and rewarding their discoveries so generously, Apple ensures that its security evolves faster than the threats arrayed against it – a win-win for both the company and every iPhone user on the planet.