Managing for Success: Maintaining a Healthy Bug Bounty Program Long Term

Tips for building trust and maintaining relationships with researchers in bug bounty programs

• Communication is key, be transparent and provide regular updates
• Keep the program fresh by adding new products, targets, and scope
• Reward researchers in a timely manner and set clear expectations
• Share known issues to avoid duplication and allow researchers to focus on areas they excel at

Bug bounty programs require building trust with researchers who are looking for a return on investment for their time and effort. To maintain relationships, it is important to communicate regularly and be transparent about updates and issues. Researchers may submit lower-level bugs to test the team's response time and engagement. Keeping the program fresh by adding new products and targets can also attract researchers. Sharing known issues can help avoid duplication and allow researchers to focus on areas they excel at. Rewarding researchers in a timely manner and setting clear expectations can also build trust.

Your bounty program has launched and is clicking along… but are you getting optimal results once the initial excitement wanes? How do you measure and report on program success? How can you build gamification and incentive models that lead to high value vulnerability reports, while discouraging low impact reports that distract your engineers from issues that put customers at risk? And while everyone hopes to never need it, what’s the playbook for handling conflict or vulnerability disclosure situations?