General Gaming Article

Facebook Paid Out $1.5 Million in Bug Bounties in 2013
Intel Announces 14-nm ‘Braswell’ Atom Chip
Five-year-old Exposes Xbox Live Vulnerability

Facebook Paid Out $1.5 Million in Bug Bounties in 2013

Posted: 06 Apr 2014 04:38 PM PDT

Highest number of valid bug reports came from India, followed by the U.S. and Brazil

Facebook on Friday published an update on the progress of its four-year-old bug bounty program, revealing that it paid out $1.5 million in bounties last year to take the program's lifetime payouts beyond $2 million.

Total submissions in 2013, according to the social networking giant, rose 246 percent from the year prior to reach 14,763, the vast majority of which were found to be invalid. The $1.5 million it paid out in 2013 were distributed among 330 researchers around the globe, with the average reward being $2,204. Further, most of the bugs brought to light under the program were "in non-core properties, such as websites operated by companies we've acquired."

"We're grateful to all the researchers around the world who have taken the time to evaluate our services and report bugs. Researchers in Russia earned the highest amount per report in 2013, receiving an average of $3,961 for 38 bugs," the company said in a note. "India contributed the largest number of valid bugs at 136, with an average reward of $1,353. The USA reported 92 issues and averaged $2,272 in rewards. Brazil and the UK were third and fourth by volume, with 53 bugs and 40 bugs, respectively, and average rewards of $3,792 and $2,950."

The company is particularly pleased with its handling of high-severity bugs, having managed to bring down "the median fix time for high-severity issues down to just 6 hours."

Intel Announces 14-nm ‘Braswell’ Atom Chip

Posted: 06 Apr 2014 04:24 PM PDT

Will replace 22-nm Bay Trail

At the recently concluded Chinese leg of its semiannual Intel Developer Forum, Intel announced the codename of the 22-nm "Bay Trail" Atom chip's successor. The 14-nm chip, dubbed "Braswell", will be aimed at low-cost desktops and entry-level notebooks.

"Today I want to announce the code name of the next-generation Atom microarchitecture–based PC called Braswell," Intel SVP and GM of the PC client group Kirk Skaugen said during his keynote address on the second and final day of IDF - Shenzen 2014, without giving any release schedule. "It'll be a leading 14-nanometer technology, delivering even lower bill-of-material (BOM) cost and higher performance."

Whenever it does arrive, Braswell could also end up powering future Chromebook models, with Chromebooks being a key area of focus for the Santa Clara-based chipmaker this year.

"Last year, we had only four designs on Chrome. Today I can announce that we will have over 20 designs on Chrome,"Skaugen said

Image Credit: Intel

Five-year-old Exposes Xbox Live Vulnerability

Posted: 06 Apr 2014 04:10 PM PDT

Managed to log in to dad's account with simple trick

Each month, the Microsoft Security Response Center publishes a list of security researchers to whom it is thankful for privately disclosing bugs in its online services and, often, working with it to fix them. On the surface, the latest list may not seem too different from the previous ones, but that's only until you realize that one of the over three dozen security researchers on it is actually a five-year-old kid.

Late last year, Kristoffer Von Hassel, a San Diego-based five-year-old, stumbled on a vulnerability in the Xbox Live service, which he promptly exploited to log in to his dad's account and access Xbox One games he wasn't supposed to. This went on until his father, Robert Davies, found out about his exploits and asked him how he was doing it.

When confronted, Kristoffer, who had until then been "nervous" about his father finding out, was more than happy to spill the beans. He informed his dad that entering the wrong password brought up a password verification screen that could be bypassed by simply entering in a series of spaces.

"How awesome is that!" Davies told a local news station. "Just being 5 years old and being able to find a vulnerability and latch onto that. I thought that was pretty cool."

A proud Davies, who works in computer security, promptly notified Microsoft about his son's discovery. The tech giant has not only formally acknowledged Kristoffer's valuable contribution in keeping Xbox Live secure, but also showered him with a few gifts — four games, $50 and a one-year Xbox Live.

"We take security seriously at Xbox and fixed the issue as soon as we learned about it," the company said in a statement.

Image Credit: Microsoft

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