Sony has announced its own bug bounty programme for PlayStation 4 (PS4) and the PlayStation Network. According to the company, anyone who finds critical vulnerabilities in PS4 will get a reward of $50,000 (nearly Rs 38 lakh). Sony has partnered with HackerOne to help run this bug bounty programme.

"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.

For PS4 the bounties start at $50,000, whereas, bugs found in the PlayStation Network will have base bounties of $100-$3,000 or more (depending on severity). The reward will be given to a hacker who will first report a previously unreported vulnerability.

Sony added, "Reward amounts will differ based on vulnerability severity, as well as the quality of the report. Sony will only award a bounty to the first researcher to have reported a previously unreported vulnerability".

Ethical hackers have broken all records by earning $100 million in bug bounties on HackerOne. So far, the global community of hackers has uncovered 170,000 vulnerabilities in nearly 2,000 customer programme. In April, $5.9 million were paid to ethical hackers for addressing the growing security needs of an increasingly interconnected society.