IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2404.17497.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Merchants of Vulnerabilities: How Bug Bounty Programs Benefit Software Vendors

Author

Listed:
  • Esther Gal-Or
  • Muhammad Zia Hydari
  • Rahul Telang

Abstract

Software vulnerabilities enable exploitation by malicious hackers, compromising systems and data security. This paper examines bug bounty programs (BBPs) that incentivize ethical hackers to discover and responsibly disclose vulnerabilities to software vendors. Using game-theoretic models, we capture the strategic interactions between software vendors, ethical hackers, and malicious hackers. First, our analysis shows that software vendors can increase expected profits by participating in BBPs, explaining their growing adoption and the success of BBP platforms. Second, we find that vendors with BBPs will release software earlier, albeit with more potential vulnerabilities, as BBPs enable coordinated vulnerability disclosure and mitigation. Third, the optimal number of ethical hackers to invite to a BBP depends solely on the expected number of malicious hackers seeking exploitation. This optimal number of ethical hackers is lower than but increases with the expected malicious hacker count. Finally, higher bounties incentivize ethical hackers to exert more effort, thereby increasing the probability that they will discover severe vulnerabilities first while reducing the success probability of malicious hackers. These findings highlight BBPs' potential benefits for vendors beyond profitability. Earlier software releases are enabled by managing risks through coordinated disclosure. As cybersecurity threats evolve, BBP adoption will likely gain momentum, providing vendors with a valuable tool for enhancing security posture and stakeholder trust. Moreover, BBPs envelop vulnerability identification and disclosure into new market relationships and transactions, impacting software vendors' incentives regarding product security choices like release timing.

Suggested Citation

  • Esther Gal-Or & Muhammad Zia Hydari & Rahul Telang, 2024. "Merchants of Vulnerabilities: How Bug Bounty Programs Benefit Software Vendors," Papers 2404.17497, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2404.17497
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2404.17497
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Arora, Ashish & Forman, Chris & Nandkumar, Anand & Telang, Rahul, 2010. "Competition and patching of security vulnerabilities: An empirical analysis," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 164-177, May.
    2. Ashish Arora & Ramayya Krishnan & Rahul Telang & Yubao Yang, 2010. "An Empirical Analysis of Software Vendors' Patch Release Behavior: Impact of Vulnerability Disclosure," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 21(1), pages 115-132, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Debabrata Dey & Atanu Lahiri & Guoying Zhang, 2015. "Optimal Policies for Security Patch Management," INFORMS Journal on Computing, INFORMS, vol. 27(3), pages 462-477, August.
    2. Kjell Hausken, 2017. "Security Investment, Hacking, and Information Sharing between Firms and between Hackers," Games, MDPI, vol. 8(2), pages 1-23, May.
    3. Kjell Hausken, 2018. "Proactivity and Retroactivity of Firms and Information Sharing of Hackers," International Game Theory Review (IGTR), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 20(01), pages 1-30, March.
    4. Brekke, Kurt R. & Siciliani, Luigi & Straume, Odd Rune, 2010. "Price and quality in spatial competition," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(6), pages 471-480, November.
    5. Zaiyan Wei & Mingfeng Lin, 2017. "Market Mechanisms in Online Peer-to-Peer Lending," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(12), pages 4236-4257, December.
    6. Orcun Temizkan & Sungjune Park & Cem Saydam, 2017. "Software Diversity for Improved Network Security: Optimal Distribution of Software-Based Shared Vulnerabilities," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 28(4), pages 828-849, December.
    7. Kjell Hausken, 2017. "Information Sharing Among Cyber Hackers in Successive Attacks," International Game Theory Review (IGTR), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 19(02), pages 1-33, June.
    8. Arrah-Marie Jo, 2019. "Software vulnerability disclosure and security investment [L'impact de la divulgation d’une faille de sécurité : au-delà des motivations de l’éditeur de logiciel]," Post-Print hal-03033198, HAL.
    9. Ravi Sen & Joobin Choobineh & Subodha Kumar, 2020. "Determinants of Software Vulnerability Disclosure Timing," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 29(11), pages 2532-2552, November.
    10. Sabyasachi Mitra & Sam Ransbotham, 2015. "Information Disclosure and the Diffusion of Information Security Attacks," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 26(3), pages 565-584, September.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2404.17497. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.