2015 was the year the public perception of automobile safety changed forever… Chris Valasek and Charlie Miller’s notorious Jeep Cherokee hack transformed the idea of the humble automobile into a 2-tonne computer that can be hacked just like any other. In recent years, automakers are realising that hackers just like Charlie and Chris are already at the table, ready and willing to help, and are leveraging the work coming out of this community to make their products safer from cyber threats.

We are excited to announce that Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is joining the ranks of those pioneering this relationship, by becoming one of the first automakers to launch a bug bounty program.

Today is a great day for hackers, defenders, Bugcrowd as a company, and for Aussie founders with a dream to execute on the world stage. We’re very proud to have Blackbird Ventures, the same firm that pioneered the Startmate incubator where Bugcrowd began, taking the lead on our $15M Series B alongside existing investors Rally, Costanoa and Paladin. We’re just as pleased to welcome Salesforce Ventures and Industry Ventures to the family.

At the beginning of the year, we made a decision to put some stakes in the ground.

We decided it was time to talk, write, argue, and share about sides of the bug bounty space that we interact with every day, but would otherwise rarely see the light of day… The kinds of things that some would consider as Bugcrowd’s “secret sauce.”

Why? Read on.