Could he be on his way to a million MileagePlus miles? Photo: Wikimedia / wwward0
United Airlines has launched a “bug bounty” program to reward computer-adept people who find security flaws and more in United’s websites and systems, with payment in big globs of MileagePlus miles as rewards.
But there’s a BIG no-no—hands off the inflight systems. United warns it will prosecute anyone who tries to break into either the cabin or cockpit systems. In fact, it recently called the cops on a well-known researcher who joked that he had broken in. It also prohibits compromising anyone else’s miles account.
It’s not unusual for companies to encourage this sort of “white-hat” hacking, but companies such as Google, Facebook and Yahoo usually pay cash. But then, they can’t dangle the prospect of becoming an instant travillionaire! The bounties go as high as 1,000,000 miles for remote code execution flaws, 250,000 for ways to get around authentication and 50,000 for some lesser flaws. Only the first person to find a flaw gets the bonus.
Details are on United’s site
