Bihar: Begusarai boy claims to have identified ‘bug’ in Google

Rituraj with his parents

BEGUSARAI: A local kid claims to have discovered a potential bug in Google, which the search engine said could have led hackers to attack its security and needed to be fixed. Rituraj Chodhary, a sophomore from IIIT-Manipur, claimed that as a “passionate bug hunter” he reported the potential vulnerability to the company, which acknowledged the threat and awarded him a place on the list of investigators.
Rituraj shared a link to this paper — bughunters.google.com — that mentions the “Tiger” category in its profile. He also shared the contents of an email, which talks about Google’s “Vulnerability Rewards Program” for software researchers to identify and report bugs to fix the problem.
“In cybersecurity language, a bug is rated on a scale of P0. When a bug is discovered, it is rated. It takes a bug hunter to bring it to P0 level, which means full vulnerability. Please report these stages, so they can fix the loopholes,” said Rituraj, adding that in his case he had successfully measured the threat level P2 on the scale.
“The loophole could be enough to allow hackers to break in and access the data and compromise on the privacy that comes with it,” he said, adding that Google acknowledged the bug. and is in the process of repairing it.
“While I have continued to work on the issue, the company has included me on its list of investigators in appreciation of my service,” he said. Rituraj said he would be entitled to monetary benefits from the company if he manages to get it to the P0 level.
The engineering student said he has had a passion for hunting insects from an early age. “I was attracted to the field when I was in high school and aspire to go to Israel or Germany to do my specialization after BTech as the two countries are considered the ‘mecca’ of cybersecurity education,” he said. .
Rituraj’s father Rakesh Kumar Choudhary runs a jewelry store here in the main city area, while his mother Sunita Jaiswal is a housewife. Rakesh said that Rituraj was very skeptical about his son’s passion.