Apple has drastically increased bug bounties, and is now giving cybersecurity researchers up to $ 1 million to detect security flaws in MacOS, TVOS, WatchOS and iCloud. This is the highest bug bounty on offer from any major technology company at a time when privacy concerns are growing on mobile devices. The tech giant also revealed that it would provide special iPhone to help security researchers detect bugs before hackers.

Unlike other technology companies, Apple only offered grants to invited researchers who tried to find flaws in its phones and cloud backups. On Thursday, the agency said it would open the process to all researchers at the annual Black Hat Protection Conference in Las Vegas. Moreover, the Bounty Rewards will only apply if researchers are able to remotely access the iPhone kernel without any action from the phone user.

Remember, Apple’s highest reward was $ 200,000 for friendly bug reports that could be corrected through software updates and could not be disclosed to criminals or spies. However, government contractors and brokers have paid as much as 2 million to get information from the device.

Earlier this year, a security researcher revealed that he had discovered a flaw in macOS, but declined to give details to Apple due to a lack of a bounty program for the operating system. The error was reported to have revealed the user’s password.

Furthermore, at the Black Hat USA 2019 conference in Las Vegas, a new iOS bug was revealed that allows hackers to access iPhones by simply sending a text. Just receiving an iMessage might be enough to hack yourself. You can read more about that story here.

In addition, the weakness of WhatsApp that allows anyone to edit your message and completely change what you send was also shown at the Black Hat Conference 2019.