HELSINKI — A 10-year-old Finnish boy has received $10,000 from Instagram after finding a security fault in the service, reported Finnish daily Iltalehti on Tuesday, May 3.
The boy, whose name was given as Jani, discovered the security vulnerability in the Instagram app, a mobile photo-sharing service owned by Facebook, in March this year, said the daily.
He found he could delete other people’s comments when he inputted malicious code into the comment field of the application.
Jani informed Instagram about the technical fault by email. After a few days, Instagram replied to him that the flaw was fixed. As a reward, he received $10,000 from Instagram.
The boy said he had been enthusiastic about coding games for years. He had been building up his skills on his own with his twin brother.
Jani’s father said he was very surprised that his son had learned so much about coding and data security.
The boy said he dreamed of becoming an information security expert in the future. “It would be my dream job. Security is really important,” Jani was quoted as saying. — PNA
