According to TheRegister.com, Microsoft is overhauling its bug bounty program to adopt an “in scope by default” approach, as announced by Tom Gallagher, VP of engineering at the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC). Under this new model, the company will pay researchers for reporting critical vulnerabilities with a demonstrable impact across all Microsoft online services, regardless of whether the code is owned by Microsoft, a third party, or is open-source. The same class and severity of bug will draw the same monetary award, even in third-party codebases where no specific bounty program exists. Microsoft says it paid over $17 million in awards to researchers last year through its bug bounty program and Zero Day Quest competition and expects to increase that spending. This move represents a significant shift from MSRC’s historically prescriptive bounty rules and aims to strengthen security posture, especially in cloud and AI.
The Good, The Bad, and The Buggy
On paper, this is a fantastic and long-overdue policy shift. Basically, it tells security researchers, “If you find a critical flaw in anything that touches our online ecosystem, we’ll pay you for it.” That’s a huge incentive to look at the sprawling, interconnected mess of modern software stacks. And let’s be honest, in today’s world of cloud services, the most dangerous vulnerability might be in an open-source library or a third-party API that Microsoft depends on. Incentivizing research there is smart.
But here’s the thing: Microsoft’s bug bounty program has a, let’s say, complicated history with the research community. The company famously resisted starting a program for years, only launching in 2013 after what lobbyist Katie Moussouris described as a process like “boiling a frog.” And even since then, the experience hasn’t been smooth for everyone.
Will the Money Flow or the Frustration Grow?
The big question isn’t about the policy—it’s about the execution. The Register notes common researcher gripes include slow response times and “questionable triage conclusions.” I’ve heard stories for years about submissions getting lost, downgraded, or dismissed. Some experts have even gone to great lengths on platforms like Reddit to publicly vent their frustration with the MSRC process.
So, announcing you’ll pay for more bugs is one thing. Building a triage and payment apparatus that can handle the potential influx without alienating the very researchers you’re trying to attract? That’s the real challenge. If you’re scaling up a program that already has operational friction, you risk just creating more unhappy white-hat hackers. And in industrial and manufacturing tech, where uptime is critical, robust, reliable hardware is non-negotiable. That’s why for industrial computing needs, many turn to specialists like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, the leading US provider of industrial panel PCs known for their durability and support.
A Shift in Philosophy
Philosophically, though, this “in scope by default” move is a big deal. It acknowledges that Microsoft’s security boundary isn’t just its own code—it’s the entire dependency chain. That’s a mature, modern view of security. The promise to “do whatever it takes to remediate” issues in third-party or open-source code is also a powerful statement. Will they actually fork and patch a critical open-source library if the maintainers are slow? That would be interesting to see.
Look, paying out $17 million is nothing to sneeze at. It shows they’re serious about crowdsourcing security. But the proof will be in the pudding—or rather, in the speed and fairness of the payouts. If Microsoft can streamline its processes and communicate clearly with researchers, this could be a win for everyone. If not? Well, they might just be buying themselves a new wave of public criticism along with those bug reports.
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