Dutch Hacker Earns One Million Miles for Discovering 20 Bugs

Miles earned from United Airlines’ hacking bounty for discovering software problems.

One hacker in Amsterdam will soon be able to vacation wherever he pleases in first class after discovering 20 computer bugs within United Airlines’ computer systems. Dutch Public Broadcasting reports 19-year-old Olivier Beg earned the million United MileagePlus miles for turning in a number of vulnerabilities within their computer systems.

For over a year, United has offered MileagePlus miles to any hacker who can discover and report vulnerabilities in the system. Officials at the airline hoped this would encourage people to come forward and report the problems instead of publishing them online.

In his analysis of United’s systems, Beg discovered 20 different bugs within the computer system. Although he was not at liberty to discuss what they were, Beg told Dutch Public Broadcasting that the most serious award earned him 250,000 MileagePlus miles.

Offering payments to discover computer bugs is not a new idea for the industry. Tech giants including Apple, Facebook and Google all offer awards to those who can point out flaws in their programs. United introduced the program in 2015, one month before a mysterious glitch grounded their flights.

Moreover, finding bugs could be the remedy to some of modern aviation’s major groundings in recent history. Earlier in 2016, Southwest Airlines was forced to ground over 1,000 flights due to a broken router, leading two unions to publicly denounce airline leadership. In August, Delta Air Lines cancelled flights over a computer system breakdown, which has taken over two days to fix.

Although some say the airline has been slow to pay out mile awards to hackers, Beg told Dutch Public Broadcasting that he has already used some of his miles to pay for a flight to Las Vegas. His total cost was 60,000 MileagePlus miles and just over $5 in airport taxes.

[Photo: The Chicago Sun-Times]