Intel Recruits Elite Hackers And Paid Expensively, What For?

JAKARTA - Intel reportedly recruited elite hackers in a Bug Bounty program with Project Circuit Breaker. Where the company will form a community of hackers to try to find bugs in the firmware, hypervisor, GPU, chipset, and more.

Project Circuit Breaker will provide time-limited events for specific new platforms and technologies. Individuals involved in this initiative will receive training from Team Blue, which will create opportunities for more hands-on collaboration with Intel engineers.

Apart from that, they can also access new and pre-release products like Intel's Arc Alchemist GPU and next-generation CPU dubbed Raptor Lake. It will provide exciting new hacking challenges and opportunities to explore on an unprecedented level.

“A bug bounty program is a powerful tool to continuously improve the security of our products,” said Tom Garrison, Vice President and General Manager of Client Security Strategies and Initiatives at Intel.

"As we aim to develop the most comprehensive security features, we also recognize the tremendous value of deeper collaboration with the community to identify potential vulnerabilities and mitigate them for continuous improvement of our product."

Launching Digital Trends, Friday, February 4, the Bug Bounty program is the first program of Project Circuit Breaker, the second is Camping with Tigers with 20 security researchers have signed up for the event.

All participants received a system equipped with an Intel Core i7 (formerly Tiger Lake) processor. The event itself, which launched in December last year will conclude in May 2022. Camping with Tigers offers rewards when certain vulnerabilities are revealed.

"(This event) brings together world-class security researchers and our own product engineers to deepen testing and increase robustness on our 11th Gen Intel Core processors," Intel said.

For your information, the Bug Bounty program was initially launched to the public in 2018. During 2021, 97 of the 113 externally discovered vulnerabilities were reported through the initiative. It's no surprise then that Intel is increasing its investment in the program.

Participants who reach the first tier will get US$2,000 and US$100,000 for finding vulnerabilities in hardware (micro processors, chipsets, motherboards, and SSDs).

The second level involves bugs related to the firmware that will get a reward of USD 1,000 to USD 30,000, while the third level of USD 500 to USD 10,000 for detecting software defects.