Indian awarded ₹10 lakh for finding bug that could hack FB accounts

A Bengaluru-based computer programmer, Anand Prakash has received $15,000 (approximately ₹10 lakh) from social network Facebook as a reward, for reporting a bug through which he was able to hack into any Facebook account using relatively simple software.

The 22-year-old further wrote that he has earned around Rs 1.2 crore just by reporting bugs for Facebook, Twitter and a host of other US-based companies. (Twitter/@sehacure)

A Bengaluru-based computer programmer, Anand Prakash has received $15,000 (approximately ₹10 lakh) from social network Facebook as a reward, for reporting a bug through which he was able to hack into any Facebook account using relatively simple software.

Anand Prakash, a product security engineer at Flipkart, wrote in a blog post on February 22 that he had found a simple vulnerability that could have been used to hack into any user's Facebook account to get access to credit or debit card details, personal pictures, and messages without any user interaction.

The 22-year-old further wrote that he has earned around ₹1.2 crore just by reporting bugs for Facebook, Twitter and a host of other US-based companies.

"I started doing this after completing my graduation in B.Tech. I have so far reported 90 bugs for Facebook and around 30 for Twitter," he said.

"On this site, I could try as many times as I wanted. I used the brute force algorithm method which allowed me to try the combinations from 0 to 9 on the six-digit code. This was a bug which could be exploited by anyone," Prakash added.