Fiat Chrysler to reward hackers for finding bugs

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles will now offer up to $1,500 to hackers who find weaknesses in its vehicle technology systems. 

Crowd-sourced digital security company, Bugcrowd, has teamed up with the automotive giant to launch this program. Hackers can earn a lot of money for vulnerabilities found in the software, depending on the severity of the issue.

Fiat Chrysler claims to be the first major car company to offer this kind of reward. This drastic measure is in response to last year's incident in which hackers took control of a Jeep SUV and was forced to recall 1.4 million vehicles. The Bugcrowd program will focus on Fiat's 3G connected vehicles.

According to Bloomberg, Bugcrowd's founder and CEO, Casey Ellis, said: “Running software basically by its virtue or nature means that you’re going to introduce vulnerabilities at some point, and that’s a problem that every organization shares. What it comes down to is, who is going to find those vulnerabilities first.”

Bugcrowd also counts Tesla Motors amongst its clients.

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