However, it’s now increasingly clear that, since last year, nearly all of Apple’s rather baffling decisions around its security bug bounty program have been in preparation for this exact problem. The changes really started in October 2025, when Apple announced what it called a “major evolution” of the Apple Security Bounty program. In December 2025, Csaba Fitzl, principal macOS security researcher at Iru, spotted a massive change in the allotted award amounts. As things become clearer, something tells me this is just the start of the bug bounty program’s AI growing pains. Security Bite is 9to5Mac’s weekly deep dive into the world of Apple security.