Last year, Nintendo debutted its HackerOne program that involved giving a bounty of range of $100 - $20,000 to hackers that disclose their system exploits and vulnerabilities for the 3DS. Everyone thought it wouldn't work out for Nintendo, but just around last month the program was extended to include the Nintendo Switch too.

Just recently as you can see in the picture, three people were rewarded so far, however the amounts paid will not be made public. It seems as if a few hackers wouldn't mind giving out their newfound exploits for some easy cash, hopefully for the sake of the Switch hacking scene, it isn't the same with our own resident hackers.

A few examples of what information Nintendo is interested in receiving:

• System vulnerabilities regarding Nintendo Switch
  • Privilege escalation from userland
  • Kernel takeover
  • ARM® TrustZone® takeover
• Vulnerabilities regarding Nintendo-published applications for Nintendo Switch
  • Userland takeover
• System vulnerabilities regarding the Nintendo 3DS family of systems
  • Privilege escalation on ARM® ARM11™ userland
  • ARM11 kernel takeover
  • ARM® ARM9™ userland takeover
  • ARM9 kernel takeover

Source

 

[linuxares]

Who cares what color their hat is? What I wanna know is what kind of hat? Fedora? Trilby? Bowler?

Tophat or go home!

 

[Vipera]

Watching all the people crying here... it's beautiful. It reminds me why I left the DS scene almost a decade ago.

By the way, if you want a console with free games, just build one yourself.

 

[The Catboy]

Snitches get stitches!

 

[GameSystem]

Those people should have just made a POC video, start up a Patreon asking for funds to develop it, and then submit it to Nintendo when the money runs try. Learn to double dip!

 

[KasaiWolf]

Meh it's up to them if they do so or not. It is their mods/hacks afterall. Money is a powerful incentive though and it can speak volumes.

 

[GerbilSoft]

Those people should have just made a POC video, start up a Patreon asking for funds to develop it, and then submit it to Nintendo when the money runs try. Learn to double dip!

And get nothing because that's against the terms of the bug bounty.

 

[John256145]

I almost forgot about this program.

 

[McHaggis]

People are wailing about this but those aren't (to my knowledge) well-known console hackers. This means that the program is doing what it set out to do: attract private security experts to help plug holes before hackers can get to them. These are people trying to earn an honest living, so (black and white) hats off to them. Some of these individuals might even have done this under company contracts.

I want to see the Switch hacked as much as anyone, but there's no point belly-aching about the people working against it. There's always been people working against it.

 

[Jayro]

Time to Lynch and Rob those assholes.

 

[RemixDeluxe]

@0x40

To answer your last question. Heres what I suggested.

Require authentication when downloading off CDN, that would stop all PC programs from getting eShop games so easily. Also try harder taking down warez hosting sites, what's the point of reporting them if they aren't going to do shit about it.

The way they left both the Wii and the Wii U to dry doesn't feel like they are trying either. It's been over a year since the Wii U's last update.

But what do I know, I'm just someone looking from the outside in.

 

[Fusion]

All i can say after thinking about this is, what if someone user's a well-known hackers name like wololo or smealum for example and yet they get torn for no reason yet no one will believe if it's true or not as it's right their in black and white.

My opinion? Bad idea to show user names, should be kept internal, otherwise why not just state the value also since for the "lols" as this will cause grief and a fallout of the hacker's of the scene and at the end, Nintendo will love that afterall.

 

[Kioku]

Time to Lynch and Rob those assholes.

Not sure if serious..

 

[netovsk]

I like Nintendo consoles and the games for it. If this benefits Nintendo and secures their vision, future and profitability then I'm happy with it.

 

[Bladexdsl]

 

[dubbz82]

Hopefully this is motivation for those that DO opt to continue working for free to actually release their stuff in a timely manner and not sit on it for months and wait for it to be patched up, before some random person stumbles across the same exploit and reports it to nintendo for (probably the lowest amount of what they're offering up) money.

 

[Pomegrenade]

Wow, abandoning your passion/hobby for cash...ah, what people do for money

 

[SuperSVGA]

Wow, abandoning your passion/hobby for cash...ah, what people do for money

How is that abandoning it? That's like saying my passion is photography and I've abandoned it by selling one of my pictures.

 

[dubbz82]

How is that abandoning it? That's like saying my passion is photography and I've abandoned it by selling one of my pictures.

More like previously releasing all of your photography for free then one day deciding to throw it behind a paywall. I can understand why people would be tempted to do this, but if you're going to make a comparison, make it a fair one.

 

[Kioku]

More like previously releasing all of your photography for free then one day deciding to throw it behind a paywall. I can understand why people would be tempted to do this, but if you're going to make a comparison, make it a fair one.

Eh. That analogy only works if these devs/hackers decide to never release for the community.

 

[Pomegrenade]

How is that abandoning it? That's like saying my passion is photography and I've abandoned it by selling one of my pictures.

Okay first a little background info, hacking a console or exploiting is considered either blackhat or grayhat hacking, therefore meaning that if they are getting paid, they are falling into whitehat hacking, therefore abandoning their 'console hacking' hobby

BTW, it's nice that you get money for your hobby, I do the same for my animations, just not hacking or homebrew
Anyway, no hard feelings