With the increase of Internet users, tech companies are realising the need for providing a bug-free software experience and hence we hear about bug bounty programs every now and then.
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These programs offer huge rewards to encourage ethical hackers and developers to find even the smallest bugs in the program. A similar ethical hacker is a 23-year-old Shivam Vashist from north India.
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According to NDTV, Vashist is a full-time ethical hacker associated with San Francisco-based HackerOne which is vulnerability coordination and bug bounty platform with clients like Twitter, Zomato, OnePlus, Starbucks and Instagram.
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If you think this is amazing for a 23-year-old, you should also know that by finding bugs, he makes over $125,000 (₹88.94 lakhs approx.) in a year.
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In an statement Vashist said,
On average, I am spending about 15 hours a week hacking. However, it varies from time to time, depending on my schedule. Some days, I might be working on something for days continuously, while at other times, I may not be hacking for weeks.
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When he was 19, he started learning about the ethical hacking world. His family was a little worried in the beginning but they eventually understood his work and supported him.
Vashist said,
However, they came to understand what I was doing over time, and know that an ethical hacker is completely legal, and a viable career. Since then, they have been very supportive.
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He earned his first bounty reward at the age of 20 from InstaCart. The young hacker said,
It was an incredible feeling, I couldn’t believe I did it! The rush it gave me left me sleepless for days.
While many of us, in our early 20s, are getting out of our colleges and trying to find a job, Shivam is already making big bucks.