Sony has announced its own bug bounty programme for PlayStation 4 (PS4) and the PlayStation Network, and the top price up for grabs for ethical hackers who find critical vulnerabilities in PS4 is $50,000 (nearly Rs 38 lakh).

"We are inviting the security research community, gamers, and anyone else to test the security of PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Network," Sony said in a statement this week.

The bug bounty programme has rewards for various issues, including critical issues on PS4. Critical vulnerabilities for PS4 have bounties starting at $50,000 while for PlayStation Network is $3,000.

Sony will award a bounty to the first hacker who reports a previously unreported vulnerability.

"To date, we have been running our bug bounty programme privately with some researchers," informed Sony.

" I'm happy to announce that we have started a public PlayStation Bug Bounty programme because the security of our products is a fundamental part of creating amazing experiences for our community," said Geoff Norton, Senior Director Software Engineering, Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE).

Ethical hackers have broken all records by earning $100 million in bug bounties on the leading security platform HackerOne, a 85.6 per cent growth (year over year) in total bounty payments with 17.5 per cent increase since Covid-19 was declared a pandemic.

The global community of hackers has uncovered 170,000 vulnerabilities in nearly 2,000 customer programme, changing the way organisations perform security.

In April, $5.9 million were paid to ethical hackers for addressing the growing security needs of increasingly interconnected society.