The company will pay researchers up to $15,000 for critical vulnerabilities found in these software development platforms Credit: Microsoft Microsoft has expanded its bug bounty programs to cover the open-source .NET Core and ASP.NET Core application development platforms.The .NET Core and ASP.NET Core technologies are used to create server applications that can run on Windows, Linux, and Mac. The ability to write code once and have it run on multiple platforms have made these technologies popular with enterprise software developers.Microsoft will pay monetary rewards between US$500 and $15,000 for critical vulnerabilities in the RTM (release to manufacturing), Beta, or RC (release candidate) releases of these platforms.Flaws in Microsoft’s cross-platform Kestrel web server are also covered by the new bug bounty program, as well as vulnerabilities in the default ASP.NET Core templates provided with the ASP.NET Web Tools Extension for Visual Studio 2015 or later. The supported platforms are the Windows and Linux versions of .NET Core and ASP.NET Core, and higher quality reports will be rewarded with a higher bounty, Microsoft said in a blog post.The company has ongoing bug bounty programs for Office 365, Azure, and Microsoft Edge. It also rewards researchers for finding novel exploitation techniques against the protections built into Windows, as well as for defensive ideas that can lead to new exploit mitigations. By expanding the vulnerability rewards program to software development tools, Microsoft will draw attention to their security and indirectly benefit companies who use these technologies for their custom applications.According to the latest State of Software Security report from application security vendor Veracode, .NET is the second most popular programming language in the enterprise space after Java. Moreover, while Java’s popularity has been on the decline for the last few years, the adoption rate for .NET has steadily increased, according to Veracode’s data. Related content news Google Chrome zero-day jumps onto CISA's known vulnerability list A serious security flaw in Google Chrome, which was discovered under active exploitation in the wild, is a new addition to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency’s Known Exploited vulnerabilities catalog. By Jon Gold Oct 03, 2023 3 mins Zero-day vulnerability Vulnerabilities Security brandpost The advantages and risks of large language models in the cloud Understanding the pros and cons of LLMs in the cloud is a step closer to optimized efficiency—but be mindful of security concerns along the way. By Daniel Prizmant, Senior Principal Researcher at Palo Alto Networks Oct 03, 2023 5 mins Cloud Security news Arm patches bugs in Mali GPUs that affect Android phones and Chromebooks The vulnerability with active exploitations allows local non-privileged users to access freed-up memory for staging new attacks. By Shweta Sharma Oct 03, 2023 3 mins Android Security Vulnerabilities news UK businesses face tightening cybersecurity budgets as incidents spike More than a quarter of UK organisations think their cybersecurity budget is inadequate to protect them from growing threats. By Michael Hill Oct 03, 2023 3 mins CSO and CISO Risk Management Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe