Sony has introduced the PlayStation Bug Bounty program, which will give hackers who uncover bugs and vulnerabilities cash rewards. According to the announcement, critical vulnerabilities for the PS4 start at $50,000.
The announcement also indicates that the company's bounty program has existed in some form for a while now, but it was only available to private researchers. By bringing the project public, Sony says that it hopes to enhance the security on its consoles. More details about the program can be found on its HackerOne page.
Critical security vulnerabilities have been an issue for both Sony and Microsoft in the past. The most notorious example remains the 2011 PlayStation Network outage, where hackers obtained the data of around 77 million users. During that incident, Sony was criticized by journalists and even government officials for waiting a week before informing players that their personal information was in jeopardy. Sony Europe was fined £250,000 for the breach by the UK Information Commissioner's Office in 2013.