While he may be too young to have a Facebook account according to CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s rules, Jani (last name withheld by parents) earned himself $10,000 from the social media giant by discovering a major flaw in Instagram. The 10-year-old Finnish boy figured out a method to get into Instagram’s servers and delete text posted by users.
He was rewarded the money as part of Facebook’s bug bounty program, which offers cash to people who find flaws in the social media platform’s digital infrastructure. This includes the Facebook-owned Instagram.
Jani unveiled that he could delete what people wrote on the photo-sharing media platform, and demonstrated it to Instagram by deleting a comment it made on a test account. The boy said he could even delete Justin Beiber’s comments with the flaw he uncovered.
According to Jani’s father, the boy and his twin brother have found security glitches in websites before, but none have been significant enough to earn a payout, until now.
Other serious bugs in Instagram have been revealed, but not all have gone rewarded. Take the case of Wes Wineberg, who uncovered “shocking” flaws in December 2015, granting him access to a large amount of internal Instagram data. Facebook believed he went too far in proving his point, and denied him a bounty.
But according to Facebook’s latest update, the bug bounty program has awarded more than $4.3 million to over 800 researchers around the world. In 2015 alone, it paid $936,000 to 210 researchers for a total of 526 reports. While many American and European hackers have submitted flaws, Indian researchers have disclosed more bugs than any other nationality. The previous youngest recipient of a bounty was 13 years old.
Like any practical kid, Jani intends on spending his earnings on football and a new bicycle.
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