Google is offering $1 million in security research grants next year

Google is investing some serious cash to ensure that its Drive cloud storage platform is never hacked.

The grants range from $500 to $3,133.70 and are awarded to “top performing, frequent vulnerability researchers” who will poke and prod at Google Drive to see if there are any flaws in its security. The company announced a new research grant program that will offer up to $1 million in grants to independent security researchers, over and above its existing budget for security research.

At the beginning of this year, Google launched their Vulnerability Research Grants program.

As explained by Kevin Nelson, Google Drive Product Manager, the goal is to differentiate this type of virtual storage even more from the traditional way of keeping files on physical drives. Separately, we’ll continue to offer up to $20,000 to anyone who finds and reports a qualifying issue. One particular product probably has your most important documents – Google Drive. For the remaining two research programs listed above, the reward starts from $1,337 with the same maximum amount. However, simply knowing that Google is willing to put this kind of money on the line to independent researchers in the name of security should help you rest a little easier, knowing that your data is safe.

The blog post didn’t specify that the $1 million would only be for research into Google Drive, but it seemed to emphasize Drive. The program aims to reward researchers who look into the security of Google offerings even when they don’t end up finding vulnerabilities.

“The goal of the grants is to support research looking for vulnerabilities, so we definitely expect that often no vulnerabilities will be found”, the company said.