Cloud CISO Perspectives: Introducing new $250,000 tier for Google Cloud VRP (Q&A)

Welcome to the second Cloud CISO Perspectives for October 2026. Today, Chris Betz talks with Michael Cote, our vulnerability rewards program lead, about the new tier of our Cloud VRP program and the current state of vulnerability rewards. As with all Cloud CISO Perspectives, the contents of this newsletter are posted to the Google Cloud blog. If you’re reading this on the website and you’d like to receive the email version, you can subscribe here. aside_block <ListValue: [StructValue([('title', 'Get vital board insights with Google Cloud'), ('body', <wagtail.rich_text.RichText object at 0x7f1b5ce58dd0>), ('btn_text', 'Visit the hub'), ('href', 'https://cloud.google.com/solutions/security/board-of-directors?utm_source=cgc-site&utm_medium=et&utm_campaign=FY26-Q2-GLOBAL-GCP39634-email-dl-dgcsm-CISOP-NL-177159&utm_content=-&utm_term=-'), ('image', None)])]> Why we've created a new $250,000 tier for Google Cloud VRP (Q&A) By Chris Betz, CISO, Google Cloud The Google Cloud Vulnerability Reward Program (VRP) partners with the global security research community to help elevate cloud security for all by encouraging the discovery of critical software vulnerabilities. In an era when automated research has made it more challenging to verify authentic vulnerabilities, we have a critical need to boost high-level, human-led research that can transcend automated-only discovery. Today, we are expanding our top reward tier with a new $250,000 Root-in-Cloud reward, specifically designed to recognize high-impact architectural research. Identifying tenant-isolation bypasses and complex cross-service logic flaws requires human creativity, intuition, and rigorous systems analysis combined with the power of agentic systems. To earn this premier reward, you must demonstrate full administrative control, the equivalent of “roles/owner” or complete IAM control, over arbitrary Google Cloud organizations or projects with no prior access or special project setup. The exploit path can not depend on: Pre-existing access or footholds in the victim project. Leaked, phished, or stolen credentials. User interaction or social engineering. Proof-of-root: Clear, cryptographic validation To make testing safe, clear, and reproducible, without impacting production environments, we have defined technical criteria for validating root-in-cloud access. Additionally, valid vulnerability reports demonstrating remote code execution (RCE) in underlying Google production infrastructure (Borg) or achieving root-in-prod will automatically be evaluated by the Google Cloud VRP panel for root-in-cloud eligibility. Because code execution in Borg has the potential to impact service availability or cross-tenant data, researchers must halt all probing immediately upon achieving any execution in Borg. Escalation, extracting production credentials, and lateral movement are not allowed and will result in researcher disqualification.  The Google Cloud VRP panel will analyze the initial entry point, execution context, and attack surface to determine whether full arbitrary tenant or project takeover is achievable from that position, and award the bounty accordingly.  This new bounty tier reflects how security research continues to evolve, and the importance of continuing to recognize the most innovative and valuable security research. As part of those efforts, Google Security held its annual Escal8 conference in Singapore last week, and I had the opportunity to discuss the changing landscape with Michael Cote, Google Cloud’s vulnerability reward program lead.  The following transcript has been lightly edited. Chris Betz: You are at Escal8 in Singapore announcing the new $250,000 Root-in-Cloud tier for our VRP. Why introduce this tier now, and what kind of research are you hoping to spark? Michael Cote: This is a recognition of how the field of security research has changed over the past year. We value quality submissions from anyone, and we’ve seen that the combination of human creativity and agentic power is much richer than either on its own. While automated scanners generate a high volume of low-impact noise, first-time researchers who pair human intuition with agentic tools are finding, on average, more interesting bugs than novices did two years ago. With the new Root-in-Cloud tier, we want to challenge the community and increasingly reward the complex, high-impact findings — like tenant-isolation bypasses and cross-service logic flaws — that require deep architectural intuition alongside agentic tools, because getting that information is essential to protecting our customers. Chris Betz: Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) recently shared research showing that monthly CVE disclosures have doubled as agentic tools mature. From your seat leading the Cloud VRP, how has automation technology impacted the reports we’ve received?  Michael Cote: It has transformed our intake volume, though not in the way many people assume. While the number of valid

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