Google paid out more than $2 million in bounties to security researchers last year in an effort to keep its applications and services safe from hackers.

The payments came via the company’s Vulnerability Reward Program, which gives researchers a financial incentive to locate security holes in Google’s software, then report them to the company rather than exploit them.

Of that $2 million, revealed in a Google report today, the largest single bounty paid to a researcher was $37,500. In the six months following Android being added to the security program in June, Google gave $200,000 to researchers who worked to hack the mobile OS’s security systems.

Google also divulged that there were upward of 750 rewards handed out to more than 300 different individuals throughout 2015, one of whom was the person who managed to buy and own Google.com for a whole minute. Google has paid out a mouthwatering $6 million since the Vulnerability Reward Program started back in 2010.

The full report can be found on Google’s blog, and makes for some interesting reading. Be sure to check it out.

• SourceGoogle