Google adds a $250,000 Cloud VRP reward for Root-in-Cloud bugs

Google has expanded its Cloud Vulnerability Reward Program (VRP) with a top-tier reward for high-impact architectural security flaws. Starting this month, researchers can earn $250,000 for Root-in-Cloud bugs, including tenant-isolation bypasses and complex cross-service logic flaws that could give attackers full administrative control over arbitrary Google Cloud organizations.

To qualify, a report must demonstrate control equivalent to the “roles/owner” role or complete IAM control over arbitrary Google Cloud organizations or projects, with no prior access or special project setup, Google Cloud Chief Information Security Officer Chris Betz said. Reports showing remote code execution (RCE) in Google’s production infrastructure, known as Borg, or achieving root-in-prod will also be evaluated for Root-in-Cloud eligibility.

Exploits must not rely on prior access to the victim project, compromised credentials, social engineering, or user interaction. Researchers who achieve execution on Google’s production infrastructure must stop probing. Escalation, obtaining production credentials, or lateral movement are prohibited and can lead to disqualification.

Google says researchers should not test against real customer projects. Instead, it created a deterministic proof-of-root mechanism using a designated service account to let researchers cryptographically prove unauthorized access. Further details, including endpoint specifications, JSON payloads, and CLI examples, are on the program’s rules page.

The change follows Google’s October suspension of submissions to its Open Source Software Vulnerability Rewards Program (OSS VRP) after a surge of AI-generated reports. Google says it has paid more than $81.6 million to thousands of security researchers since launching its first Vulnerability Reward Program in 2010. In 2025, it awarded a record $17.1 million to more than 700 researchers, 40% more than in 2024, when it paid $12 million.