Before engaging with unvetted bug bounty hackers, organizations need to be well-informed of the benefits of a comprehensive crowdsourced platform and the potential risks of working with the wrong crowd.
Without proper crowd standards, quality assurance, or technical controls and management, hack bounty programs can introduce unwanted risk and operational burden into an organization. In a typical cyber security bug bounty program, there could be thousands of bug bounty hunters of varying expertise, generating noisy results of varying quality. As mentioned, one of the key benefits of bug bounty is the access to more researchers, and thus more vulnerabilities. However, organizations often fear an influx of vulnerabilities and lack of resources to appropriately manage and triage even the valid vulnerabilities. Behind every critical vuln, there are numerous false positives and low-quality vulnerabilities to sift through as well. Furthermore, it can be daunting managing communication with a crowd of hackers. Synack offers a high-level of control, quality, and insight that is not as accessible in traditional open bounty bug programs.