EnFinlay

I know Gitlab takes security seriously and I think part of why we hear so much about it is because they're so transparent.

hacker101.com and join the community Discord. There's a ton of Bug Bounty hunting content on the internet. Plenty of room to explore and find your niche.

I can't find the article right now, but I remember reading an article many years ago on Wired about the Obama campaign and their use of targeting and "big data". Really interesting stuff about how they were buying TV spots and the Romney campaign couldn't figure out why, and how their use of technology was a massive advantage.

Saying you want "authentic" vs "just like home" are very different to me. One implies value judgement, the other does not.

I'm having trouble articulating this, so bear with me.

In general, having a Bug Bounty program is good. We can agree on that, right?

Most Bug Bounty programs have a scope, and staying inside the scope is important to the business for reasons. My guess is that most scopes are defined by a combination of confidence in the security of the code, resources to triage vulnerabilities in that part of the code, and the risk to the business from vulnerabilities found in different parts of the code.

That is to say, I suspect that either Valve doesn't have many developers well versed in that part of the code base, or they are not confident in the security of that code base, or they considered it a low priority (even if we disagree about the priority of this vulnerability).

Now, let's pretend that I'm right about those reasons. Even further, let's pretend that they did not include it in the scope because they don't want to pay a bunch of bounties on code they knew was insecure.

(Aside, I'd much rather have companies only include things in bug bounty programs once they're confident they are secure, relying on BB to do your security for you is begging for trouble because then the company isn't taking responsibility for, or even trying, to do things securely)

Given this train of thought, which is making more than a couple assumptions, I don't think their actions are extremely bad or pointless. They are trying to keep their bug bounty program in scope. Bug bounty programs involve a fair amount of trust. If that trust is broken and they don't want that researcher anymore, then that's fair.

There probably should have been better communication. It probably (definitely) shouldn't have been a WONTFIX. Overall, terrible outcome for everybody.

It's just one of those things where every decision looks reasonable in isolation and leads to a really bad outcome and the company looking terrible.

I'm not trying to defend Valve, I'm just surprised that everyone seems to be so upset about the ban.

I was responding to a comment that (I interpreted) to be talking in more general terms than the scope of the article.

Retailiated as in he was banned from their bug bounty program. The program with a scope that they went outside of. I think it's reasonable to be banned.

Obviously it would be better if Valve fixed the issue and gave a (possibly reduced due to out of scope) bounty.

And Valve has ever right to ban him from their program, right?

The researcher can still disclose it, they just aren't going to get permission to disclose it on the Hackerone program. Most things out of scope don't get publicly disclosed as far as I know.

Doesn't seem too unreasonable.

a) Program has scope that doesn't include X

b) Researcher reports vulnerability that falls under X

c) Since it's out of scope, it's closed as N/A

d) Report is locked because company doesn't want to publicly disclose a vulnerability in their system via the Hackerone platform

What's the problem here? Just go with normal vulnerability disclosure. Bug bounty programs are a two way street, and respecting the scope is part of that.

Edit: I guess the important part is that the researcher was then banned for disclosing the report. Seems reasonable, honestly. I don't agree with it, but I understand it.

Might be easier to lay off everyone on that half-full 3rd floor and save money on your lease next cycle.