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Bug hunters can now earn up to $172,000 from OpenAI as company ramps up security

OpenAI quadrupled bug bounty payouts, raising rewards for critical vulnerabilities in products such as ChatGPT and Codex to up to $30,000, with exceptional findings reaching $100,000 and roughly $172,000 including quality, loyalty and campaign bonuses, the company announced. OpenAI also added a five-tier loyalty program and time-limited campaigns tied to new feature launches, and will pay the difference between old and new rates retroactively to anyone who reported a vulnerability in the prior 30 days. Separately, OpenAI is preparing a security sprint in which the security firm Cathedral will work with OpenAI engineers to stress-test its systems; during the last sprint, 25 percent of OpenAI's product engineers worked on finding vulnerabilities.

by read1 min views2 publishedNov 3, 2026
Bug hunters can now earn up to $172,000 from OpenAI as company ramps up security
Image: The Decoder

OpenAI quadruples bug bounty payouts and launches new internal security sprint. Critical vulnerabilities in core products like ChatGPT or Codex now earn outside researchers up to $30,000, the company announced. Exceptional findings can net up to $100,000, and with quality, loyalty, and campaign bonuses, the total can reach roughly $172,000.

That puts OpenAI in the same ballpark as Google's general vulnerability rewards program, though still below the top-tier payouts Apple or Microsoft offer for OS-level exploits. New additions include a five-tier loyalty program and time-limited campaigns with boosted payouts tied to new feature launches. Anyone who reported a vulnerability in the last 30 days will get the difference between the old and new rates retroactively.

Alongside the bounty overhaul, OpenAI is preparing a security sprint where the security firm Cathedral will team up with OpenAI's own engineers to stress-test its systems. During the last sprint, 25 percent of OpenAI's product engineers worked on finding vulnerabilities, according to the company.

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