How one bug bounty researcher chooses the features they investigate
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As we kick off Cybersecurity Awareness Month, the GitHub Bug Bounty team is excited to spotlight one of the top-performing security researchers participating in the GitHub Security Bug Bounty Program: @vaib25vicky! The security research community makes GitHub safer for everyone—that’s the simple idea behind GitHub’s Bug Bounty Program. For more than a decade, researchers from around the world have helped us identify and fix vulnerabilities before they could be exploited, helping protect the code that powers millions of development projects. As AI-powered experiences such as GitHub Copilot and the Copilot coding agent reshape how software is built, partnering with skilled researchers across both traditional and emerging attack surfaces matters more than ever. This year marked a new chapter for our program. We restructured our bounty tables around a core shift in what we incentivize: you don’t earn more by submitting more—you earn more by submitting better. As part of this change, we formalized a permanent, invite-only VIP program for researchers who consistently deliver high-quality, high-impact work. VIP researchers receive: Significantly higher payouts—up to $30,000 or more for critical findings Faster response times on their submissions Early previews of beta products and features before public launch The path to the VIP program is based on demonstrated, consistent quality. Researchers who have one critical, two high, four medium, or seve