Syed Saif Ul Hassan 
Oct 11, 2025
In a surprising turn of events unfolding in the realm of cybersecurity, Apple has announced an unprecedented reward of up to $2 million for anyone who can successfully hack an iPhone.
The iPhone maker's staggering sum of $2 million in bug bounty is said to be the highest payout in its bug bounty programme.
This enormous incentive is part of Apple’s current efforts to protect iPhone users from sophisticated spyware attacks and advanced cyber threats.
The $2m prize for hacking an iPhone specifically targets “sophisticated mercenary spyware attacks,” which are advanced exploits capable of compromising devices without user interaction, akin to the notorious Pegasus spyware developed by Israel’s NSO Group.
On the contrary, most tech companies offer only a fraction of such a massive reward for nitpicking similar vulnerabilities. This makes Apple’s initiative one of the largest cybersecurity bounties worldwide.
Since its launch, Apple's bug bounty programme has paid over $35 million to ethical hackers and researchers. The programme has expanded to include various categories of vulnerabilities, such as iCloud exploits and wireless attacks, allowing researchers to earn significant sums for identifying security flaws.
With the programme, Apple is aiming to attract more experts to boost user trust as threats from independent hackers and state-sponsored groups are growing manifold with time.
It's worth noting that Apple previously sued Israel’s NSO Group in 2021 for targeting its users with surveillance tools.
Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior VP of software engineering, stressed that this initiative is about holding spyware developers accountable and making user protection unbeatable against digital intrusions.
