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Microsoft is already offering people paid bounties for finding issues in Windows 8.1 but now the company is giving a chance for you to obtain some interesting, and exclusive, items for their Xbox Live avatar as well.
In a blog post, Microsoft's security defense and research team announced the BlueHat Challenge, which offers three different tracks for people to try out: reverse engineering, vulnerability discovery, and design-level web browser manipulation tricks. To enter the challenge, you must email Microsoft to receive instructions on how to complete each track.
If someone successfully completes one or more of the BlueHat Challenges, they can receive Xbox Live Avatar items, including the "hacker" t-shirt and hat, or the MSRC t-shirt.
So why create this kind of program? Microsoft states:
We hope to spur interest in computer security and help people improve their skills through a self-directed learning process. We also want to give something back to the community—we think these problems are going to be a lot of fun for you to solve. We had a lot of fun coming up with them!
The BlueHat Challenge is an ongoing program and will continue as long as there is enough community interest. While Microsoft says that anyone who completes the three BlueHat Challenges won't automatically receive a job offer from the company, the company is encouraging people who enjoy working on the problems to consider applying for one of the open positions in their Trustworthy Computing group.
Source: Microsoft | Image via Microsoft
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