When Facebook denied: Hacker Khalil Gets over $12k From Online Donors
Khalil the hacker who broke into Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook Timeline to expose a security lapse will be awarded nearly $12,058(increasing amount) from a campaign started on GoFundMe. The campaign was started by Beyond Trust Chief Technology Officer Marc Maiffret, who is doing his best to make sure Shreateh doesn’t walk away from this experience empty-handed.
The campaign has raised $12,058 for Khalil Shreateh, of Palestine, who claims he was forced to hack into Zuckerberg’s page to bring attention to the security vulnerability because Facebook had ignored his earlier warnings.
The bug that Khalil found allowed him to post on the Timelines of people who weren’t his Facebook friends.
Khalil Shreateh found a vulnerability in Facebook.com and, due to miscommunication, was not awarded a bounty for his work,’ Maiffret wrote on the GoFundMe campaign page. ‘Let us all send a message to security researchers across the world and say that we appreciate the efforts they make for the good of everyone.’
According to the ‘Bug Bounty’ program that pays out at least $500 to hackers who bring software bugs to the company’s attention. But the company said Khalil would not qualify for a reward because he tested the bug against another user.
Joe Sullivan, Facebook’s Chief Security Officer, explained the company’s decision in a post online.
We will not change our practice of refusing to pay rewards to researchers who have tested vulnerabilities against real users,’ he wrote. ‘It is never acceptable to compromise the security or privacy of other people. In this case, the researcher could have sent a more detailed report (like the video he later published), and he could have used one of our test accounts to confirm the bug.’
But instead of thanking him and fixing the issue, Facebook said it wasn’t a bug.
‘My name is Khalil Shreateh. I finished school with B.A degree in Information Systems . I would like to report a bug in your main site (www.facebook.com) which i discovered it…The bug allow Facebook users to share links to other facebook users , I tested it on Sarah.Goodin wall and I got success post.’
“I hope this has raised awareness of the importance of independent researchers,” Maiffret said on the Indiegogo page. “I equally hope it has reminded other researchers that while working with technology companies can sometimes be frustrating, we can never forget the greater goal; to help the Internet community at large, just as that community has helped donate over ten thousand dollars to Khalil within a day.”
Here is a video made by the man himslef:
[youtube id=”F9J8U9ZpEnw” width=”100%” height=”300px”]
