Election App Voatz Simply Bought Kicked Out of a Main Bug Bounty Program

Bug bounty platform HackerOne severed ties with Medici Ventures-backed Voatz, the blockchain-based cell voting app for breach of partnership requirements. 

The removing cuts off Voatz’ entry to HackerOne’s community of “moral hackers” who commerce their experience to find code faults for money. HackerOne companions with companies focused on shoring up potential safety vulnerabilities. Throughout 1,800 whole relationships and eight years, although, it is by no means earlier than kicked a accomplice out, mentioned consultant Samantha Spielman.

Spielman mentioned Voatz’ breach of “partnership requirements” made the connection unviable, regardless of this system’s previous bug-hunting successes. 

“As a platform, we work tirelessly to foster that mutually useful relationship between safety groups and the researcher group,” she mentioned. Spielman declined to elaborate on Voatz’ requirements breach.

Voatz advised CoinDesk in a press release that it regrets the connection’s “non permanent pause.” It mentioned that HackerOne had caved to a “small group of researchers who, together with a number of different members of the group, imagine Voatz reported a researcher to the FBI.”

“This falsehood and misinformation has been a supply of animosity towards Voatz and our companions, who face constant assaults from these researchers,” the assertion mentioned.

West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner mentioned in October 2019 that the FBI was investigating an tried breach of the app throughout a pilot program in 2018. West Virginia has used the app in a number of pilots, and Warner maintains that no votes have been altered thus far. 

Voatz got here below the highlight in mid-February when a bunch of MIT researchers launched a scathing write-up highlighting myriad obvious safety flaws within the app. They alleged Voatz was primarily bunk, criticized its transparency and known as up election officers contemplating the app to perhaps assume twice. 

Voatz responded with its personal torrent of criticism. In a sarcasm-laced February 13 press launch, it known as the researchers’ report unfair and their “dangerous religion suggestions” irreparably flawed.

Nevertheless, earlier this month Path of Bits printed a report supporting the MIT researchers’ claims. Voatz had commissioned Path of Bits to research its platform.

Voatz started working with HackerOne in August 2018 and has paid out over $6,000 to researchers by means of “HackerOne and different avenues” since. It plans to announce its personal bounty program “within the coming days.”

West Virginia has dropped its partnership with the corporate.