Cyber Expertise - Most Prized Skill in the Modern Age
Our technological culture operates like a well-oiled machine. Some develop, others consume, inventors invent, entrepreneurs invest, and more. But one thing is manifest. Each represents a vital part in this operation that makes this "machine" run smoothly. Still, the online world is exposed to many threats and can only exist with the skills and abilities of experts in the Cyber Security field.
The Bug Bounty program is the perfect example of the value of online security researchers. Software companies manage this program, organizations, and business owners and offer financial incentives to discover bugs and security vulnerabilities, and exploits in their systems.
Sounds puzzling? It's not. We are a society of "give and take." Our motivation runs high when we put our "eyes on the prize," and that's what makes the Bug Bounty program intelligent. It motivates security researchers to challenge companies' websites and services, discover and report bugs before distributing them to the public, and prevent the use and exploitation of the breach. It also encourages the "black hat hackers," which are Cybercriminals who usually use their skills for malicious attacks, find a breach, and report it to the company in exchange for a nice incentive.
Although the idea for the Bug Bounty was first proposed in 1983 by Hunter & Ready, which announced that it would grant a Volkswagen Beetle to anyone who would find a bug in its real-time operating system - VRTX, it only started to take on increased importance in the second decade of the 21st century, when world's leading corporations began using this strategy, amongst Google, Apple, Microsoft and Facebook, and even the U.S. Department of Defense and the European Union.
In November 2013, Apple and Microsoft announced they are beginning the sponsorship of Internet Bug Bounty. This program was operated by volunteers who shared incentives to recognize bugs in different open-source software and programming languages like Python, Adobe Flash Phabricator, Ruby, PHP, Ruby Rails, OpenSSL, Django, Apache HTTP Server, among others.
Due to the Bug Bounty program efficiency, in 2013, Google announced that they would expand its Bug Bounty service. Instead of dealing with bugs and security vulnerabilities in the company's superior services only, they would expand the program to include selecting Google applications that negatively impact the core Operating System.
In 2019, Google again expanded the program and offered significant incentives between 500$ to 50,000$ on every identification of bug difficulties and security vulnerabilities in most downloadable apps in the Google Play Store. Nevertheless, they were not the only ones who kept raising the bar. Facebook paid the amount of 2.2 million$ during 2019 for its Bug Bounty, and Microsoft, with its Bug Bounty, paid security researchers 4.4 million$ between July 1, 2018, and January 1, 2019.
As previously mentioned, the EU is also an advocate of the Bug Bounty system. On January 25, 2021, the official website of the European Union published that the European Commission launched a new set of Bug Bounties on January 11, 2021. This Bug Bounty program focuses on open-source software extensively used by European Public Services, using the "Intigriti" Bug Bounty platform and funded by ISA² (Interoperability solutions for public administrations, businesses, and citizens).
This was not the first time the European Commission used the Bug Bounties strategy. In fact, Between the years 2018 and 2020, as part of the EU-FOSSA 2 project, the Commission invested 200,000€, and according to the publishing of the European Commission, it resulted with "Fifteen Bug Bounties led to 600 reported bugs, 200 accepted as valid, of which 70 were marked as critical."
The European Union is constantly promoting internal E.U. Cyber Security services. In June 2016, ECSO was founded (European Cyber Security Organization) by Luigi Rebuffi and signed with the European Commission on a Public-Private Partnership (PPP). Their common goal was to develop the Cyber Security industry inside Europe and increase the use of services of European Cyber Security companies, locally and globally.
While there is a valid fear for technology to become a threat to human labor in the future, it undoubtedly created a high demand in the Cyber Security field, which is worth a lot of money and has an everlasting need in great technical minds. The E.U. recognizes the significance of becoming a Cyber Security brand and promotes Cyber Security companies founding in Europe for developing their business.
Although Only European Cyber Security companies from the European Union Member States, the European Free Trade Association, and European Economic Area countries, including the United Kingdom, can apply for the Label, still, there are other inflexible criteria concerning the quality and services required, based on committed European excellence.
OR Security, a Cyber Security company based in Berlin and Budapest founded by Örs Apor HORVÁTH, a specialist with an impressive footprint of more than 20 years' experience in Information Technology, has lately become a part of the ECSO label. This highly meticulous Cyber Security company with partners like HACKRATE (a Bug Bounty platform) is the ideal model ECSO summons to be a part of the organization and the standard they set to make European Cyber Security one of the most prestigious and valuable globally.
