10-Year-Old Finnish Boy Hacks Instagram, Gets Paid $10,000

"Jani," who is not even old enough to register for a Facebook account, has managed to break into one of the largest social media platforms, Instagram. In return, he was paid $10,000.

According to reports, the Finnish boy who dreams of becoming a security expert someday, discovered a security flaw in the social network site in March.

The bug, which was overlooked by the mighty engineers of Facebook, allows any user to delete comments that had been left by anyone, including the accounts of famous celebrities like Justin Bieber.

After detecting the bug, he sent an email to the company, To prove his claim, a test was immediately conducted. Right then, the bug was "quickly fixed," said Facebook. For his trouble, Jani was given $10,000.

"The hack wins the young expert $10,000 as part of Facebook's bug bounty programme. That hands out prizes to people who find flaws in the company's security so that they can be found and fixed," The Independent explains.

Engadget notes that last year, Facebook reportedly paid out $936,000 to 210 different researchers, out of a grand total of 13,000 submissions.

Facebook told BBC that it has paid $4.3m to bug bounty recipients since 2011.

Beating the 13-year-old who previously discovered a bug on the site, Jani is now the youngest to break into the site and eventually get paid.

In an interview with Finnish newspaper Iltalehti, Jani shared he has a twin brother who also has interest in information security.

In fact, he revealed that he and his brother have been searching for security gaps in several companies for the past years. While they have found few, he said, they have been so small that they were not paid for doing it.

His parents and teachers are proud of the 10-year-old boy. All of them could not believe that a young mind can do such big job.

Meanwhile, Jani said he planned to use the money to buy a new bike, football equipment and computers for his brothers.