Ezequiel Pereira was once a few month shy of 17 when he first were given paid for exposing a Google safety flaw thru its computer virus bounty program.
Pereira were given his first pc when he was once 10, took an preliminary programming magnificence when he was once 11 after which spent years instructing himself other coding languages and strategies. In 2016, Google flew him to its California headquarters after he received a coding contest.
His sporadic poking round has in the end paid off in a large approach: Google simply awarded the Uruguayan youngster $36,337 for locating a vulnerability that will have allowed him to make adjustments to interior corporate methods.
“I discovered one thing nearly straight away that was once value $500 and it simply felt so wonderful,” Pereira advised CNBC. “So I made up our minds to simply stay attempting ever since then.”
Even supposing Pereira discovered the computer virus previous this 12 months, he handiest simply were given permission to put in writing about how he came upon it this week, after Google showed that it had mounted the problem.
It marks Pereira’s 5th authorised computer virus, however it is by means of some distance his maximum profitable.
“It feels in point of fact excellent — I am happy that I discovered one thing that was once so essential,” he mentioned.
In February, Pereira began faculty for pc engineering in his homeland of Montevideo. When he is completed along with his homework and does not really feel like putting out with buddies or observing movies, he’s going to whip out his pc and get started looking.