Competitors in the hacking contest received over $800,000 in prize money for discovering exploits in Winows 11 security systems, Microsoft Teams, and other work applications – all in just one day. During the 15th annual Pwn2Own Vancouver hacking competition, teams discovered 16 zero-day bugs in products ranging from the latest Microsoft OS to Firefox, Oracle Virtualbox and more.
Pwn2Own Vancouver 2022 continues for three days, with sponsors from Microsoft, Zoom and other big tech companies. As part of the competition, teams of “masters of security” – hackers, are trying to find vulnerabilities in software, including those that other hackers may have known about for a long time, using them for attacks.
Now at least eight teams have received more than $40 thousand, STAR Labs is in the lead with $230 thousand. During the second day, the hackers will focus on car software – Tesla is offering over $1 million in prize money, as well as a Telsa Model 3 and Model S to a team that can hack the car. This is an absolutely minuscule amount, given the damage that attackers can cause.
After the end of the event, companies will have 90 days to fix all vulnerabilities.
