AI Spam Floods Apple Bug Bounty Channel, Blocking Critical Report

Apple’s bug bounty program relies on independent security researchers to disclose flaws affecting products including the iPhone and Mac in exchange for rewards tied to severity. Generative AI can accelerate code analysis and vulnerability discovery, but it has also lowered the cost of producing low-quality or fabricated submissions. The resulting flood risks overwhelming human reviewers and delaying fixes for legitimate, high-impact security weaknesses.

Apple recently restricted submissions to its bug bounty inbox and temporarily blocked reports after the channel was inundated with AI-generated spam. Cybersecurity startup Bynario said its researchers used ChatGPT to uncover a serious macOS vulnerability potentially worth as much as $200,000 under Apple’s reward structure, but were unable to report it promptly because of the controls. The episode highlights how AI-assisted security research is colliding with review systems strained by synthetic content.