Elon Musk’s SpaceX is giving up to $100,000 to anyone who can hack into…

TOI Tech Desk / TIMESOFINDIA.COM / Updated: Apr 15, 2025, 10:01 IST

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SpaceX is incentivizing security researchers to identify vulnerabilities within its Starlink satellite internet system through a bug bounty program, offering up to $100,000 for significant findings. The company has already awarded an average of $913.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is giving up to $100,000 to anyone who can hack into…

Elon Musk’s company SpaceX is giving up to $100,000 to security researchers to help test the safety of its satellite internet system, Starlink. The company shared this in a blog post, highlighting efforts to protect customer data and improve system security. Through its bug bounty program, SpaceX will pay researchers who find security problems in Starlink. So far, 43 bugs have been found. The average reward over the last three months is $913.75. “We encourage researchers to test Starlink for security issues in a non-disruptive way, and to report their findings through our bug bounty program,” the company said in the blog post.
SpaceX says it checks the impact of each issue by looking at several key factors, such as how the bug works, what it affects, and how serious it could be. These factors include:

Target: Does this vulnerability just impact Starlink user terminals and routers, or does it affect shared infrastructure like satellites and our centralized services? What does compromise of the target mean in the larger Starlink system?

Access Required: Is the vulnerability exploitable over the Internet? Is it exploitable over the local network? Is it only exploitable with physical access? Does it require other authentication or preconditions to be viable?

Access Gained: What access does the exploit grant to the target? Can it to be used to affect other users or the system overall? Would it allow an attacker to gather information about Starlink customers?
Scale: How hard would it be to exploit the vulnerability to affect many devices in the fleet?
Persistence: Does this exploit allow an attacker to gain access to the target and maintain it across reboots?

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