Facebook rewarded a 10-year-old with $10,000 for finding a glitch on its photo-sharing app Instagram.
Jani, from Finland, is the youngest hacker in history for Facebook’s “bug bounty,” a term used to describe users who find glitches or weaknesses in its platforms.
Instagram, created by Stanford graduates Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, was bought by Facebook in 2012 – after Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg offered the pair a billion dollars for it.
Hoping that Instagram could stand malicious code, Jani tried out what he learned from YouTube videos on coding. He figured out a way to delete user comments on Instagram.
"I wanted to see if Instagram's comment field could stand malicious code. Turns out it couldn't," Jani told the Finnish newspaper Iltalehti. "I could have deleted anyone's comments from there. Even Justin Bieber's."
Facebook gave the reward to Jani in March, after they fixed the glitch in February.
Jani wants to explore a career in data security in the future, but his immediate plan is to buy a bike and a football with his reward money.
