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Zerodium is offering up to $1.5 million for an exploit against iPhones and iPads running the latest version of iOS 10, or up to $200,000 for an exploit against Android 7:
Last year, Zerodium offered $1 million for iOS exploits, up to a total of $3 million. It dropped the price to $500,000 after receiving and paying for three qualifying submissions. On Thursday, Zerodium founder Chaouki Bekrar said the higher prices are a response to improvements the software makers—Apple and Google in particular—have devised that make their wares considerably harder to compromise.
"Prices are directly linked to the difficulty of making a full chain of exploits, and we know that iOS 10 and Android 7 are both much harder to exploit than their previous versions," he told Ars. Asked why a string of iOS exploits commanded 7.5 times the price of a comparable one for Android he said: "That means that iOS 10 chain exploits are either 7.5 x harder than Android or the demand for iOS exploits is 7.5 x higher. The reality is a mix of both."
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Saturday October 01 2016, @01:30PM
Chance there is still at least one useful exploit: 99% but going down?
Chance you can be the first to find a useful exploit: 0.01%
If you find something significant and report it:
Chance you'll be fined, fired and/or imprisoned, like Dmitry Sklyarov and Jon Johansen : 5%
Chance it will be used against people you like: 99.9%
Cost of sample products: $1000
Cost of other needed equipment: not much, and you already had plenty
Hours required to study the product: 100 to 1000
Cost/value of rising in the rankings on secret government and organized crime lists of "evil" hackers: ???
If you aren't desperate for money, doesn't seem worth trying. Too many people still want to shoot the messenger. Too likely you'll find nothing and still end up on a few lists.