Jaipur Student Receives Rs. 38 Lacs After Discovering Bug on Instagram; You Can Win It Too

Instagram is among the many platforms that host bug bounty programs. Neeraj Sharma, a student from Jaipur, has received a reward of Rs. 38,00,000 from Instagram as part of the bug bounty program. The student has saved millions of social media accounts from being hacked.

Jaipur Student Wins Bug Bounty Program

Going into the details, Sharma found a critical bug that could potentially hack millions of Instagram users. The bug could change a user's thumbnail without requiring their account credentials like login id or password.

"There was a bug in Facebooks Instagram, through which the thumbnail of the reel could have been changed from any account. All it required was the media ID of the account to change it no matter how strong the password of the account holder is," Sharma said to the press.

Sharma's work began last year in December when he began finding faults with his own Instagram account. After much research, he found the bug on Instagram, and he immediately reported the same to Facebook. Three days later, he received a reply from them requesting a demo.

The demo was successful and Sharma could change a thumbnail in just five minutes. Soon, Meta-owned Instagram approved his report and also mailed him the details of the bug bounty reward of USD 45,000 (around Rs. 35,00,000).

However, the rewards grants were delayed, and Facebook also gave USD 4,500 (around Rs. 3,00,000) as a bonus. Sharma finally received a reward of Rs. 38,00,000 as part of the bug bounty program.

How to Be Part of Bug Bounty Programs?

Sharma is among the many students and security researchers who are part of the bug bounty programs worldwide. In recent times, we have witnessed a boom of youngsters, especially teenagers being part of bug bounty programs as well as hacking incidents. In the latest news, a teenager hacked Uber and also leaked GTA 6 gameplay videos.

If you're looking to be part of bug bounty programs, you can always sign up for them at their portals. For instance, you can find the Instagram Bug Bounty program online, and you can be part of their projects. If you find critical bugs or vulnerabilities, you might also be rewarded for them.

Also read: Instagram working on repost feature