WHO receives $5k in bug bounty donation by hackers

Hackers taking part in HackerOne's first-ever virtual live hacking event donated $5K in bug bounties to the World Health Organization's COVID-19 Solidarity Fund. The generous gesture was part of HackerOne's Hack for Good initiative, which invites hackers to hand over what they earn from companies by discovering bugs in their products and systems to charitable campaigns.
They set a bug bounty platform up, inviting hackers to share the proceeds of their successful bug hunts with the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund. HackerOne set up a special link on its website that enabled hackers to donate all or part of the bounties they earn to charity in just a few clicks.
Although the donation profile was set up in response to an active pandemic, HackerOne said the concept could endure long after they resolve the health crisis. The World Health Organization established the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund to help countries around the world combat the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Hackers and security leaders who are driven by a passion to make the internet safer started HackerOne. The platform is the industry standard for hacker-powered security. It partners with the global hacker community to surface the most relevant security issues of customers before criminals can exploit them. HackerOne is headquartered in San Francisco with offices in London, New York City, Singapore, and the Netherlands. HackerOne hackers are located in over 150 countries.
HackerOne's 13-day virtual hacking event attracted 50 hackers from 13 countries. The event is scheduled to take place in Singapore earlier this month but was pushed back and moved online because of the widespread outbreak of COVID-19 and its corresponding lockdowns. Singapore has over 28,038 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus. At the time of writing, 22 Singaporeans had died after contracting the novel coronavirus, while 9,340 had recovered.
A spokesperson for HackerOne noted that: "To keep the spirit of an in-person event alive, besides hacking, the virtual event included several panels, virtual couch-side Question & Answers, and healthy competition in the form of virtual Pictionary and a push up challenge -giving hackers the opportunity to collaborate more closely with the target than ever before."
During the event, over 250 security vulnerabilities were submitted in Verizon Media assets and over $673,000 in bug bounties was awarded to hackers who sniffed out vulnerabilities. Topping the earnings charts was hacker Mayonnaise, who broke the record for the most bounties earned during a live hacking event. Besides, the closing days of the event marked the biggest week of bounty pay-outs ever with over $2.4m paid to hackers in bounties in just six days.
Asked how they felt about attending a virtual event versus an in-person affair, hacker Sébastien Morin said: “This first Virtual Live Hacking Event was very fun and a complete success! It felt like a Live Hacking Event marathon which lasts 2 weeks. It was amazing to be together even in this tough time.”