Netragard has shut down its Exploit Acquisition Program

By Janine de Blois

The time buyers were taking to complete a single transaction was unfair to the researchers. Adriel T. Desautels, Chief Technology Officer at Netragard says in a post regarding the company’s decision. While a single transaction should take no more than a month, the average transaction time stretched out to four months with the buyer. Shelf life of exploits is short. The last transaction fell through after 7 months, because the issues were silently patched in the next development cycle. “So until the end players learn how to move faster, the high price bug brokering market just isn’t viable.”

While it has been reported elsewhere that the Exploit Acquisition Program had brokered an item for $200,000, Desautels corrects this what he had said was-he had heard of “very specific and rare items” being sold for as much. However, the average sale price for exploits ranges between $10,000 and $20,000.