During its ‘bug bounty’ security initiative, which began in July this year, social networking giant Facebook paid out over $40,000 to security researchers - the professional researchers as well as hacker hobbyists – for uncovering any Facebook vulnerabilities and sending its details to the company.

With the bug bounty program aimed at tapping into the collective wisdom of the 750 million users of the site, a finder's fee of at least $500 is paid by Facebook once the details forwarded by the bug-hunters are checked out.

In a recent blog post, Joe Sullivan – Facebook’s Chief Security Officer - revealed that under the present bug bounty program, one “really good” report was paid a $5,000 bounty; and one person reportedly received over $7,000 for discovering six vulnerabilities.

It was after Facebook took pains to reassure the bug-hunters that no legal action will be taken against those who submit bugs that security researchers from over 16 countries successfully submitted bounty bugs.

With the public “thank you” list of Facebook naming dozens of contributors, Sullivan said: “We hire the best and brightest, and have implemented numerous protocols. We realize, though, that there are many talented and well-intentioned security experts around the world who don't work for Facebook.”