Ask HN: Bug Bounty Dilemma – Take the $ and Sign an NDA or Go Public? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Bug Bounty Dilemma – Take the $$ and Sign an NDA or Go Public?

Hi everyone,

I recently found a high-criticality vulnerability in a listed consumer company in the UK. It allows unauthorized access to users’ private messages and even lets you impersonate other users on the platform.

They’ve offered a €1,000 bounty, but only if I sign an NDA that prevents any public write-up—even after the issue is patched.

I feel the bounty is too low for the impact, and asking to sign an NDA that prevents any public disclosure even post-fix feels like a big red flag.

I’m leaning towards declining the offer and doing a public write-up once the issue is fixed—but I’d really welcome opinions from others on what the right thing to do here is.

Thanks!

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This is exactly how bug bounty hunters are being exploited for.

Though it is on the good side about disclosure, calculate how much financial, reputation impact, negative publicity would cost the company and settle for a fair price and not a measly sum of 1k EUR.

It is a huge red flag to keep it under the radar if they think the impact is going to be high. I'm sure it is high and that's the reason they want to keep it undisclosed while they silently patch it.

One question: Was the discovery part of a bug bounty program? Or you stumbled upon it without any actual request? I'm trying to see the legal angle that might get down played there if you do not have the authorization to look at it.

Being ethical is the only advantage I see if that is the case. Else, you should negotiate and demand a fair price and go for a public disclosure which will cause more harm than good for them.

Everything has a price. Nothing in this world is free. Contact some good lawyer.

Don't ever sign an NDA without vetting it out with a good lawyer. Fine prints matter a lot.

As some of the fellow HNs mentioned, they will probably be looking at a huge impact and the reason for the NDA and a low sum as a token appreciation. They think they can buy their way being a corporate, any my advice would be to talk to some lawyers or contact a non-profit to help sort things out.

Probably you could donate a % to them if you get a good amount.

Hope you get what you deserve.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply — really appreciate it.

I actually stumbled upon the vulnerability without any prior request. They don’t have an active bug bounty program, and the Head of IT Security I’m in touch with mentioned they don’t have dedicated funds for security researchers — which is hard to believe for a company with a £200M+ market cap.

I’ll definitely dig a bit deeper into the legal side.

Based on all the suggestions here, I’m leaning toward quoting them a fair amount considering the impact. If they don’t agree, I’ll likely reject the NDA and do a public write-up after a reasonable disclosure window.

One thing I forgot to mention earlier as of today — the vulnerability is fixed (I reported it around 3 weeks ago), not sure if that changes anything leverage wise.

Your leaning feels correct, and more if the listed company deals with health or financial data where personal data and privacy is of utmost importance.

User-impersonation, and unauthorized access would probably leave them open to potential lawa suits and loss of credibility, hence the NDA or more like a gag order.

Non-disclosure even after patch is surely a big red flag.

In the interest of the users and public accountability, it is suggested to publish an incident report, only after notifying the company of sufficient time to patch the vulnerability.

Thanks for the reply — really appreciate it.

The company doesn’t deal with health or financial data, but yeah, user impersonation and access to private messages is still serious enough to expect some level of accountability.

I’m holding off on sharing more details for now since mentioning the domain + the vuln might make it too easy to identify the company.

I’m leaning toward a public write-up after giving them fair notice.

One more thing is that the vulnerability has already been fixed (I reported it 3 weeks ago), so not sure how much leverage that still gives.

1k sounds like a discretionary amount that would quite neatly fit within a manager's budget for external consultants and so on, which is probably what they'll say you are when accounting for it. They're trying to fly under the radar, and have likely kept this knowledge to only a few people.

The organisation will never change their ways unless they get bad publicity or have to spend so much money that their c-suite gets involved.

I would be wary of trying to negotiate the payment upwards in case you are accused of extortion; just explain you'll disclose publicly in 30 days, which is more than enough time to fix what I assume is a web app backend bug. You don't want them dealing with this kind of issue as a feature to be implemented when there's space in one of the future sprints.

They may try at this point to negotiate the payment upwards, which is a matter for you and your conscience, but I would say that if you don't get something close to 100k, it's likely to be swept under the rug internally and they'll never learn from their mistakes.

You are making a lot of assumptions that I'd encourage you to not. Also, this isn't a big bounty dilemma. There was no program.

What are you trying to accomplish? You hacked a site (probably not legal).You reach out and reported it (nice gesture). They fixed it (the site is more secure (yay!). They offered to pay you $1k pounds (awesome!). You are rejecting the offer based on lies you tell yourself (they can pay more and if rather share it with the world be cause good things will happen for me if I do).

Bad things can happen too. They can reach out to authorities. Your current or future employer could reach your future post and decide you aren't the right person for them. The underlying company could respond to your post and confirm you weren't authorized to test and a good portion of the security community would never seriously consider you for employment.

Sure, you might be able to negotiate a little more, if you take the right approach. How much do you want? 1200, 10,000, 50,000? When you do something wrong, even with good intentions, and now you aren't happy with the amount they graciously offered to compensate you with, your approach to publicly expose them if you don't get what you want because "they can pay more" seems less like they won't pay for my expertise and more like extortion.

When in doubt, choose the path you'd be proud to talk about in a courtroom.

thanks for the reply - really appreciate it. I get the sense of what you are indicating and it makes sense as well. Also I am not security researcher, but a software engineer who tinker around with other apps

Well, the company has a bug bounty program and you must abide by their rules. Or they do not have a program (and did not give you permission) and your action could fall under the Computer Misuse Act (CMA) in the UK (criminal offense). Also I am not a lawyer, so if you want to public disclose, make sure to talk to some UK lawyers.

> and doing a public write-up once the issue is fixed

I'd also check with UK laws, as even that might be close to gray-ish territory if they're willing to go after you. Litigious companies are a pain to work with. Especially if they seem to be looking for no bad PR. Worth a few hours of research, maybe reach out to a non-profit and see if they can help?

At that amount, I would decline and state that you will be releasing the write-up in the coming weeks. I don't know the laws of the UK, though.

Is the bug bounty through a platform like HackerOne / Bugcrowd? Or do they just have a private VDP and the money is a bonus on top?

Offer them to hire you for an extensive security review for more money

I am not a security researcher - a full stack engineer who likes to look for vulnerabilities in my free time

I’d tell them you don’t sign NDAs, and you’re happy to accept the bounty.

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