There are others like Google offering rewards for bugs in Chrome, and other specific high profile bounties like when Microsoft Offered $250K Bounty for Conficker Author.

Mozilla on Thursday boosted bug bounty payments six-fold by increasing the standard cash award to $3,000.

The new bounty for vulnerabilities in Firefox, Firefox Mobile and Thunderbird is also six times the normal payment by Google for flaws in its Chrome browser, and more than double the maximum $1,337 that Google pays for the most severe bugs. Mozilla and Google are the only browser makers that pay security researchers for reporting vulnerabilities in their products.

“A lot has changed in the six years since the Mozilla program was announced, and we believe that one of the best ways to keep our users safe is to make it economically sustainable for security researchers to do the right thing when disclosing information,” said Lucas Adamski, director of security engineering. Mozilla kicked off its bounty program in August 2004 .

Only bugs that Mozilla ranks “crucial” or “high” — its top two ratings — are eligible for payment. In Mozilla’s hierarchy, critical vulnerabilities are those that allow remote code execution; in other words, ones that when exploited give the attacker full control of the machine. High vulnerabilities are those that expose “high-value” personal information, such as usernames, passwords and credit card numbers. Denial-of-service flaws are not eligible for a bounty, Mozilla said.

It’s a big increase too going from $500 all the way to $3000 which is more than double what Google offers for the most critical & clever bugs ($1337). You could earn a decent living if you could find one Mozilla bug a month, especially if you already have a stable monthly salary.

I doubt anyone would be able to find so many bugs, and even if they did it’s still way below the market rate for a real, remotely exploitable 0-day exploit.

I still think it’s a good initiative though and they’ve raised the bounty to make it a more viable option for security researchers to submit vulnerabilities directly to them.

Google launched its own cash-for-flaws program in January 2010, paying $500 for most bugs. Some vulnerabilities, however, earn their discoverer $1,000, or even $1,337, the latter given only to bugs that Chrome’s team judge’s “particularly severe or particularly clever.” The last time Google paid bounties was July 2, when it handed out $2,500 to a pair of researchers for reporting four vulnerabilities.

Adamski announced several other changes to Mozilla’s bounty program on the Mozilla security blog Thursday. Bugs in the Mozilla Suite, which the Mozilla Foundation dropped in 2005 — will no longer be eligible for bounties, said Adamski. But vulnerabilities in Firefox Mobile, Mozilla’s mobile browser, as well as any Mozilla services that Firefox or Thunderbird rely on for safe operation, are eligible.

Mozilla also added new language to its reward policy that gives it some new flexibility. “Mozilla reserves the right to not give a bounty payment if we believe the actions of the reporter have endangered the security of Mozilla’s end users,” the revised guidelines now state.

They do say in the statement that if you were paid to find the flaw (e.g. by your company as a security researcher) they would prefer if you didn’t apply for the bounty so they can award the money to people working independently.

So if any of you guys find any interesting flaws in Mozilla products, $3000 might be waiting for you!

Source: Network World

It seems a data leakage bug has struck Firefox recently and has been confirmed by Window Snyder the security bod at Mozilla.

It’s basically a Chrome directory traversal bug (It seems a lot of the Firefox issues have had to do with chrome?).

It’s rated as low risk, but it can give away the existence of files (if the attacker knows the name and location).

The bug resides in Firefox’s chrome protocol scheme and allows for a directory traversal when certain types of extensions are installed. Attackers could use it to detect if certain programs or files are present on a machine, gaining information to use in perpetrating another, more malicious exploit.

Normally, Firefox’s chrome package is restricted to a limited number of directories, but a bug in the way it handles escaped sequences (i.e. %2e%2e%2f) allows attackers to escape those confines and access more sensitive parts of a user’s computer. The exploit only works if a user has made use of Firefox extensions that are “flat,” this is, those that don’t package their files in a jar archive. Examples of flat add-ons include Download Statusbar and Greasemonkey.

You can protect yourself by using NoScript, which I would guess most of you guys are using already.

The open bug can be found here.

Source: The Register

Looks like Mozilla is toughening it’s stance on security, people have been putting it down lately, especially those from the Microsoft camp as there have been a few flaws.

But well, it’s still not part of the operating system, the flaws are generally fixed within a couple of days and the patching system is simple and bandwidth friendly since version 1.5.0.1.

I generally find it more effecient, better designed, more secure and less proprietary :P than Internet Exploder.

Anyway back on topic..

Former Microsoft security strategist Window Snyder is joining Mozilla to lead the company’s effort to protect its range of desktop applications from malicious hacker attacks.

Snyder, who was responsible for security sign-off for Microsoft’s Windows XP Service Pack 2 and Windows Server 2003, will spearhead Mozilla’s security strategy, eWEEK has learned.

The hiring of Snyder is a coup for Mozilla Corp., the for-profit subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation, based in Mountain View, Calif.

The group has seen its flagship Firefox Web browser chip away at the market dominance of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, largely because of high-profile security flaws in and attacks on IE, and the addition of Snyder is sure to help beef up Mozilla’s security process and improve its communications with bug finders.

Sounds like a very good idea to me, with a proper security stance and process in place Firefox will become a market dominating product, it’s already fantastic, now it’s getting more money and skills injected, it’s evolving faster and smoother than ever.

Snyder most recently served as principal and founder of Matasano Security, a New York-based startup that was one of several external penetration testers hired by Microsoft to conduct simulated hacking attacks on Windows Vista.

She is also credited with seeding the idea for Microsoft’s internal “Blue Hat” security briefings, in which the crème de la crème of the hacking community is invited to the company’s Redmond, Wash., headquarters to discuss security with employees.

Snyder, a regular at security conferences, helped to soothe Microsoft’s contentious relationship with security consultants, and played a part in the improvement of the software maker’s strategy for reaching out to security vendors and researchers.

She was HITB conference this year I think if anyone was there, she’s quite cute too :P

Source: eWeek