Ethereum has announced a bounty for its community to find bugs in its network before the Altair upgrade. The upgrade had been announced at the end of September and a date for the launch was set for October 27th, about three weeks from now. The devs had also given the precise time and block that the upgrade was scheduled to go live on. And that the project was right on track.
It is the next major step in the journey to ETH 2.0. An important one that brings to bear the “punitive parameters” that were made public in EIP-2982. Ahead of this launch, the devs are working to make sure that the network is as safe as it can be for the upgrade. So to avoid running into problems with its launch, the team has released a bug bounty program to encourage its community to find and report vulnerabilities in the ecosystem.
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Finding Bugs In The Network
The Ethereum bug bounty comes with several reward categories for hackers depending on the severity of the bug found. This is to incentivize “white hat” hackers to report the bugs they find in the network to be fixed instead of exploiting them for personal gain. The bounty is applicable for all bugs found in the ETH 2.0 protocol, but all bugs found specifically in relation to the upcoming Altair upgrade promises double rewards to the finders.
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With less than four weeks to go, the team continues to work to make sure that there are no delays in this very important upgrade. Leading to the outsourcing of finding bugs in the network to its community.
The bounty announcement lists two categories of valid bugs for submission. While rewards for the bugs found are based on a point system. Points are awarded to the hackers based on the severity of the bug which they find. Each point equals $2 or 2 DAI, or an equivalent paid in ETH according to the exchange rate.
Ethereum Rewards For Bug Bounty
Bug severity categories range from low to medium, high to critical. The lowest rewards are for low impact, medium likelihood bugs which bestow a maximum of 1,000 points to the bounty hunters. With monetary rewards of up to 2,000 DAI, a decentralized stablecoin that is directly pegged to the price of the U.S. dollar.
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The highest rewards are for critical bounties with high impact, high likelihood. These are bugs that need to be fixed right away and could cause a lot of damage to the ecosystem if they are not properly addressed. Rewards for this category of the bug bounty carry the highest number of points and as such, the highest amount of monetary compensation. Points awarded for the critical category go as high as 25,000 points, totaling 50,000 DAI for the maximum payout.
Anyone can report a bug in the network for the Ethereum bug bounty, abiding by the rules set by the Ethereum Foundation. Researchers and employees of the Ethereum Foundation and the ETH2 client are restricted from participating in the bug bounty.
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