Indian Security Researcher Praised For Finding Bugs In Microsoft Products

At the Future Decoded event held in Bengaluru, Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft shared with developers how their products can drive humanity forward as well as creating stuff for many different fields.

He also talked about creating products that can build trust among users, especially in a time when there is a significant rise in cyberattacks.

Due to cyberattacks, the world economy has lost over $1 trillion. Cybercriminals are targetting specific users to use their computer for bitcoin mining. Cybersecurity researchers can prevent these vulnerabilities from happening on time, saving people from getting attacked.

While talking about cyberattacks, he mentioned 21-year-old security researcher Suresh Chelladurai from Avaraukulam, a small village in Tamil Nadu. Nadella thanked Chelladurai for his help in discovering major security vulnerabilities in Microsoft products.

For the last six months, Chelladurai has found about 21 security vulnerabilities. In 2018, he was one of the top 10 bounty hunters of Microsoft in the sixth position with 18 submissions.

Bounty hunters usually receive a great amount of money for reporting such vulnerabilities before hackers can discover and exploit them.

There are quite a few security researchers in India that are looking for products’ flaws for hefty bounties. Just recently, a 19-year-old Btech student from Kerala KS Ananthakrishna detected a major WhatsApp’s flaw. The bug allowed hackers to extract files from the messaging app and the user wouldn’t know anything.

He also proposed a possible fix to the company. Facebook awarded him $500 or Rs 34,000 for his discovery.

Sahad NK, another bounty hunter from Kerala, also exposed several Microsoft’s code vulnerabilities which allowed hackers to hijack Microsoft Outlook, Office 365 or Microsoft Store accounts. Sahad also received a handsome bounty for this.

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