Facebook Rewards 10-Year-Old Boy $10,000 For Discovering Instagram Security Flaw

The boy – named as Jani, from Helsinki, figured out a way to crack into Instagram’s servers and delete any written content on the social media platform by altering the code.

The Finn has become the youngest recipient of Facebook’s ‘bug bounty’, for his work. He beats the 13-year-old who previously broke into a Facebook product

I would have been able to eliminate anyone, even Justin Bieber,” the boy genius told Finnish publication IItalehti.

He said he plans to use the reward to buy a new bike, football gear, and new computers for his brothers.

Jani reported his discovery to Facebook – which owns Instagram, and verified his claim by deleting a comment the company posted on a test account. Facebook’s team then acknowledged the issue and developed a fix for the vulnerability.

Facebook awards researchers a minimum of $500 per valid disclosure, but the reward increases depending on the severity of the flaw. Jani’s bug was considered impressive enough to warrant one of the higher amounts, leading to a $10,000 reward.

Since the company launched its bounty program in 2011, Facebook says it has paid out some $4.3 million to over 800 researchers. The largest single bounty so far has been $20,000.