Chrome Vulnerability Reward Program (VRP) News and FAQ
News and Updates
Chromium has migrated to a new issue tracker. Please report all Chromium security bugs in the new tracker using this form.
Please check here for any news and updates about the Chrome VRP.
4 February 2024: The Chromium issue tracker migration is now complete. Please submit all issues using the new issue tracker and use this form for directly reporting security issue to the security team.
1 February 2024: Chromium issue tracker migration will begin on Friday, 2 February 2024. During the migration new issues will not be able to be reported. As of 4 February 2024, all security bugs should be reported using this form, and select ‘Security’ from the “Which of the following best describes the issue being reported?” dropdown.
26 January 2024: Chromium is moving to a new issue tracker. This is currently scheduled for 5 February 2024. More information will be provided next week before the migration.
25 January 2024: We have updated our VRP policy on duplicates and collisions for actionable versus non-actionable reports. Please see the Chrome VRP qualifying vulnerabilities for details.
December 2023: We announced the Chrome VRP Top Researchers of 2023. Congratulations to all who made the list! Thank you to all of our researchers for your contributions in 2023 and helping us make Chrome Browser more secure for all users.
About the Program
The Chrome Vulnerability Rewards Program (VRP) is the “security bug bounty” for Google Chrome Browser. Please visit the Chrome VRP Rewards and Policies page for full details.
Interesting Security Bug Write-Ups
Here are some interesting write-ups of past Chrome security bugs:
We only post links to articles with the author's consent. Please let us know if you would like your work to be shared here.
Best Practices for Security Bug Reporting
To help make the process of security bug triage as efficient and smooth as possible, please consider the following best practices for Chromium security bug reports:
- Use the security bug reporting form
- This will allow the bug report to be included in the security bug triage queue immediately.
- Include the version number and OS used to reproduce the bug. For an extra bonus reward, please consider including a bisection.
Proof of Concept (PoC)
- Upload PoC files directly to the report itself as separate attachments.
- Please name the PoC file poc.html or index.html in the case of multiple files.
- Ensure the PoC is as minimized as possible.
- This is useful in root cause analysis and also improves the changes of reproduction by ClusterFuzz or the Security Shepherd triaging your report.
- Please format your PoCs so they do not require running python as root.
- Your PoC should be constructed to reproduce locally when at all possible.
- Do not provide links (public or unlisted) to / as PoCs.
- The PoC should ALWAYS be a file directly attached to the report, even if it cannot be reproduced in ClusterFuzz.
Steps to Reproduce
- Please include clear, concise, numbered steps to reproduce the bug you are reporting.
- Provide the full command line and any build flags to reproduce.
Report Attachments
- Do not upload attachments as a single compressed file, such as .zip, .gzip, or .tar files.
- Please upload all necessary attachments (PoCs, patch, fix patches, video demonstrations, exploits) as individual files on the bug report.
- ASAN stack traces should be symbolized, and include all
additional information fields, and the sanitizer should be built using Chrome's standard mitigation and hardening flags. - Patch.diff files that are not suggested fixes should explain - as part of the steps to repro - the reason for the patch, such as to simulate a compromised renderer or allow for stable reproduction, such as running the PoC in a loop or winning a race condition.
- Do not provide links (public or unlisted) to demonstration videos.
- If possible, please upload your demonstration video directly to the report.
- Please keep the video as concise as possible.
- We do not need to see you loading Chrome or displaying the version page multiple times in a video.
- DO feel free to include music, sound effects, or animal pics in your videos. :)
Bug Reporting
- Please ensure your report is concise and clearly articulates the bug, explaining and demonstrating (through PoC, exploit, and/or video), such as:
- How the issue is reachable and exploitable by web content or a compromised renderer.
- The security consequences / user harm resulting from exploitation of the bug.
- Avoid reporting theoretical bugs; reports that simply state a potential bug from static analysis without demonstration of the security issue.
- These reports will be considered as unactionable and will be triaged at a lower priority, and may be closed as WontFix without demonstrable evidence of a security bug.
- These reports are also considered below baseline quality and qualify for reduced or no VRP reward.
- At a minimum, please include the version number and release channel (Stable/Beta/Dev) on which you discovered and reproduced the issue you are reporting.
- For an opportunity at increasing your potential reward amount to receive a Bisect Bonus, please consider performing a full bisection, detailing the commit that introduced the issue and / or all the active release channels impacted by the bug.
Suggested Fix / Patch Rewards
- If suggesting a patch to fix the issue you are reporting, please upload it to the report as its own attachment.
- We reward bonuses for your patches that end up being used as the fix.
- Bonuses are $500 - $2000 depending on how substantial the patch is.
- To maximize your patch rewards, please commit the patch directly to Chromium and include the Gerrit (Chromium code review tool) link in the report or report comment.
- Remember to include the Chromium bug tracker issue number in the CL, if you land the patch after filing the bug report, so that it can be linked to the report.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Scope / Reward Eligibility
How do I know if my bug report is possibly eligible for a VRP reward?
- All validated, qualifying vulnerability reports are automatically considered for a reward once they are fixed. At which point you will see the reward-topanel hotlist signifier added to your bug report. This indicates that it will be reviewed at a Chrome VRP panel meeting for a reward decision.
- The bug will be updated again once the panel has made a reward decision.
I want to report a bug through a broker / not directly to you.
- We believe it is against the spirit of the program to privately disclose security vulnerabilities to third parties for purposes other than fixing the bug. Consequently, such reports will not qualify for a reward.
What if someone else reported the same bug?
- Only the first actionable report of a security bug that we were previously unaware of is eligible for a potential VRP reward. In the event of a duplicate submission, the earliest actionable report in the tracker is considered the first report.
- If the issue is discovered by one of our internal fuzzers within 48 hours of your report, it is considered a known issue and is not eligible for a reward.
What does actionable report mean?
- A security bug report is only considered actionable once it contains appropriate information that allows for validation and triage, such as a minimized test case / PoC, steps to reproduce, a symbolized stack trace, and/or other demonstrable evidence of the security bug being reported.
- A report lacking this actionable information and does not allow us to reproduce the issue to validate and investigate the bug is not considered to be a complete, actionable submission.
Are bugs in unlaunched features / behind command line flags VRP-eligible?
- Yes, we are interested in bugs in any code that has shipped to even a fraction of our users.
- The only exception at this time are security bugs in V8 behind --experimental; this flag is for early and experimental V8 development efforts and this configuration should not be used in production. Security bugs specific to this configuration are not eligible for Chrome VRP rewards.
- Please ensure you include what command line flags are required to trigger the bug in your report and remove any unnecessary flags.
- The report will be triaged with the appropriate security severity and as Security_Impact-None. This categorization of Security_Impact-None does not impact the potential reward amount.
- Please note that these security bugs do not have the same SLO to fix as bugs impacting Stable, Beta, or Dev. The only expectation is that the bug is fixed before the feature is exposed to users, such as part of an origin trial or field experiment.
What about bugs in channels other than Stable?
- We are interested in security bugs in Stable, Beta, and Dev channels because it's best for everyone to find and fix security bugs before they impact Stable channel users.
- We do, however, discourage hunting in Canary or Trunk builds. These do not go through release testing and exhibit short-lived regression that are typically identified and fixed quickly. Reports of bugs in new code in trunk may collide with on-going work of the engineers as part of “trunk-churn”.
- Reports for bugs in newly landed code on Trunk / Head landed within 48 hours of the report are not eligible for VRP rewards.
- VRP eligibility for reports in Head will be based on assessment of ongoing development efforts and discussion with the engineering team to determine if the VRP report was used in identifying and fixing that issue.
- Bugs for issues resulting from newly landed commits on Head that are seven (7) or fewer days old are likely to not be eligible for a VRP reward.
Are bugs in third-party components in scope and eligible for VRP rewards?
- Yes, we are interested in reports for bugs in our third-party components, such as libxml, sqlite, and image and compression libraries. The security impact must manifest in and result in security consequences in shipped configurations of Chrome.
- Reports should demonstrate that the vulnerable code is reachable in Chrome.
- We are interested in rewarding any information that enables us to better protect our users. In the event of bugs in an external component (such as an upstream dependency), we may also ask that you file a bug directly with the vendor or maintainer for that component, so that the product or project owners can set about fixing the bug immediately.
- This also ensures that you have direct access to the status of the report, can directly communicate with that vendor or project owner, and receive credit or acknowledgement (if they have such a mechanism to do so).
Can I submit my report(s) and provide a working exploit later?
Is there a time limit for submitting an exploit?
- Most definitely! We realize that developing an exploit is a lengthy process and we very much encourage this approach, as it allows us to work on fixing the bugs as soon as possible. It also reduces the chance that someone else reports the same issue while you are working on the exploit.
- Although we don't have a set time limit, we would expect that the exploit would follow within six weeks of the initial report. If more time is needed, we are happy to discuss extended timelines.
Will you reward for types of bugs that are not specifically listed?
- Yes. We are interested in rewarding any information that enables us to better protect Chrome users. Reward amounts are based on the potential security harm of the bug being reported and the quality of the report.
Report Status / Bug Lifecycle
What happens after I report a security bug to you?
Will I receive a CVE for my bug?
- If the issue you report was an exploitable security bug impacting Stable or older version of Chrome, and it was the first actionable report of that issue, your bug will be issued a CVE at the time the fix ships in a Stable channel update of Chrome.
- The CVE number will be updated directly on the report itself and listed in the Chrome Browser release notes for that Stable channel update.
Disclosure / Report Visibility
What if I disclose the bug publicly before you have fixed or disclosed it?
- Please read our stance on vulnerability disclosure
- Essentially, our pledge to you is to respond promptly and fix bugs in a sensible timeframe, and in exchange, we ask for a reasonable notice of potential disclosure.
- Disclosures that go against this principle will usually not qualify for a VRP reward, but we will evaluate them on a case-by-case basis.
When will the bug I reported be publicly disclosed?
- Most security bugs are automatically opened for public access 14 weeks after the bug is closed as Fixed, meaning the fix commit is landed on Chromium main.
- Our automation removes the view restrictions, opening the report for public visibility at that time.
Can you keep my identity confidential from the public?
- Your email address is obscured by default (by elision) in the Chromium bug tracker and is not revealed once the bug is publicly disclosed.
- If you do not want to receive public acknowledgement for your report, please let us know in the report or before the issue is listed in the release notes.
- We will credit the finding to “anonymous” researcher or we are happy to credit it to whatever pseudonym or tag you provide to us.
- If you receive a VRP reward for your report and accept it, Google will need to privately collect some identifying information to process your reward payment.
Can you keep my report under Security Embargo?
- Security Embargo prevents issues from being disclosed beyond the security team and engineers working to resolve the bug. Once the issue is fixed, the (Security Notify) community of embedders and developers of other Chromium-based products are reliant on the access to bug reports. Because Security Embargo restricts this access indefinitely, it is used only on a specific case-by-case basis, such as when the bug should never be publicly disclosed.
Rewards / Reward Decisions
My bug was rewarded under older amounts, will you pay the difference?
- We often increase reward amounts and introduce new bonus opportunities. We reward bug reports based only on the rules that were in effect at the time of bug submission and VRP Panel assessment.
The exploit market pays more for bugs!
- Yes, we are aware that the exploit brokers, underground markets, three cats in a trenchcoat on your local street corner may pay more for bugs. We understand that many pockets of society may pay you more money to purchase information about the vulnerabilities you may find or exploits you develop. These people buy vulnerabilities and exploits for offensive purposes to target people using Chrome across the internet. We believe the reward you get under those circumstances comes with strings attached -- including buying your silence and accepting that any bug you sell may be used to target other people without their knowledge, such as activists, dissidents, and vulnerable populations.
- We understand our reward amounts may be less than these alternatives, but we also believe we provide additional benefits when reporting directly to us, such as public acknowledgement of your findings and skills, the opportunity to engage directly with the security team and engineers working to resolve your bug, a quick resolution and seeing a fix you contributed to go out into the world, the opportunity to publicly discuss/blog/present/share your amazing work, and the knowledge that you are helping keep Chrome secure for billions of people across the world!
- Also, many of our researchers receive gifts of swag and are invited to events.
- You'll additionally have the peace of mind to know your bug findings were never used by shady people for nefarious purposes.
When will I receive my reward?
- Once the bug has been assessed by the VRP Panel, the bug report is updated with a reward decision and information.
- If this is your first VRP reward for a Google program, a member of the finance p2p-vrp team will reach out to enroll you in the Google payment system.
- VRP payments are handled by the p2p-vrp finance team. Once you have been enrolled, you will receive you payment within 1-2 weeks of a reward decision.
- Please reach out to p2p-vrp@google.com with questions about the payment enrollment process or assistance with any payments issues.
I don't agree with the reward amount. Can I get the reward reassessed?
- We always try our best to be fair and consistent, but sometimes we may get it wrong or miss something in our assessment. If you feel that is the case, please reach out to us at security-vrp@chromium.org detailing why you believe we should reassess your report.
Other
I have a security-related question that is not listed here.