Instagram Rewards Tamil Nadu Man With $30,000 For Spotting Bug

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Laxman Muthiyah, a security researcher based out of Chennai has won $30,000 for finding a bug on the popular image-sharing app Instagram. He received the reward under the company's bug bounty programme. According to an NDTV report, Muthiyah said the vulnerability allowed him to "hack any Instagram account without consent."

 
Instagram Rewards Tamil Nadu Man With $30,000 For Spotting Bug

As per the researcher, it is possible for anyone to hack someone's Instagram account by requesting for a password reset or recovery code.

 

"I reported the vulnerability to the Facebook security team and they were unable to reproduce it initially due to lack of information in my report. After a few email and proof of concept video, I could convince them the attack is feasible," Muthiyah wrote in a blog post this week.

Later, after reported by Muthiyah, Facebook and Instagram security teams fixed the vulnerability and rewarded him with $30,000 as a part of the bounty programme.

"In case any of your accounts do get taken over, familiarise yourself with the process you'd follow to win them back. In particular, if there are documents or usage history that might help your case, get them ready before you get hacked, not afterwards," NDTV report quoted Paul Ducklin, the Senior Technologist at cybersecurity firm Sophos.

This is not the first time Muthiyah have spotted a bug on social media. Earlier, he discovered a data disclosure bug on Facebook. This bug was capable of destroying all your photos on Facebook without even knowing your password.

According to Muthiyah, the bug was fixed by the Facebook's security team before it became public, and patched it before anyone else finds them.

So if you also have some knowledge in bug finding then don't ignore when you see them. You might also get the chance of winning $30,000 as rewards from Facebook and Instagram.

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