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Meta had paid more than $4 million in cumulative bug-bounty awards by the time a TechRadar report was published on November 19, 2025. TechRadar also reported around 13,000 submissions and almost 800 validated reports. Those are figures reported during 2025—not a verified final total for the full calendar year.
What Meta’s 2025 bug-bounty figures show
TechRadar’s November 19, 2025 report put Meta’s 2025 program activity at around 13,000 submissions, almost 800 validated reports, and more than $4 million in cumulative payments. The figures are attributable to TechRadar’s contemporaneous report; they should not be read as an audited year-end accounting. Read TechRadar’s report.
The counts describe different stages of the program. Submissions are reports sent in; validated reports are those found to meet the program’s criteria. A submission count does not mean every report was eligible, valid, or rewarded. The available reporting does not establish how many researchers were paid in 2025 or provide a final year-end payout breakdown.
How that compares with Meta’s 2024 retrospective
Meta’s own February 13, 2025 retrospective reported that it received nearly 10,000 reports and paid more than $2.3 million in awards during 2024. It said awards were made on nearly 600 valid reports, with nearly 200 researchers from more than 45 countries receiving awards. Meta’s 2024 bug-bounty retrospective.
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| Period and source | Reports or submissions | Valid or validated reports | Awards |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024, Meta retrospective published February 13, 2025 | Nearly 10,000 reports | Nearly 600 valid reports received awards | More than $2.3 million |
| 2025, TechRadar report published November 19, 2025 | Around 13,000 submissions | Almost 800 validated reports | More than $4 million in cumulative payments reported |
The comparison is useful as a snapshot of reported scale, but it is not a like-for-like audited annual comparison: Meta’s 2024 retrospective and TechRadar’s report published before the end of 2025 use different wording and reporting dates. The 2025 figures do not establish the final full-year amount.
What kinds of security research were in scope?
Meta’s 2024 retrospective described work across several product areas rather than a single app or service. It encouraged research into ads audience tools and mixed-reality hardware, and described privacy or security issues in its large language models, including attacks that could extract training data through model inversion or other extraction techniques. Meta’s retrospective and program examples.
For one specific finding type—discovery of specified personal information in an ads audience—Meta described a maximum base payout of $30,000 under its then-current guidance. That was not a program-wide maximum or a guaranteed award: Meta said deductions could apply depending on required user interaction, prerequisites, and other mitigation factors. Details of the ads-audience payout guidance.
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Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →What the WhatsApp Research Proxy is—and is not
TechRadar also reported that Meta introduced a WhatsApp Research Proxy to help selected, long-time researchers investigate the messaging protocol. The report described broader availability as a future goal but did not give a date. It was presented as a restricted research tool, not a consumer feature generally available to WhatsApp users. TechRadar’s coverage of the proxy.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Meta’s longer-running bounty program
In the same February 2025 retrospective, Meta said cumulative program awards had exceeded $20 million since the program began in 2011. That historical total is as of the retrospective, not a separately verified lifetime total through the end of 2025. Meta’s program history.
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