Google to Offer Up $2.7 Million Bounty in Pwnium Hacking Competition
Google is putting up a ton of cash for the taking as part of this year's Pwnium hacking competition at the CanSecWest security conference in Vancouver in March. More than $2.7 million is up for grabs, which will be doled out in chunks to hackers who discover security vulnerabilities in Google's Chrome operating system.
The sultan of search will award $110,000 to hackers who discover a browser or system-level compromise in guest mode or as a logged-in user, delivered via web page. An even bigger reward -- $150,000 -- is being offered for discovering compromises with device persistence: guest to guest with interim reboot, also delivered via web page.
"New this year, we will also consider significant bonuses for demonstrating a particularly impressive or surprising exploit," Google stated in a blog post. "Potential examples include defeating kASLR, exploiting memory corruption in the 64-bit browser process or exploiting the kernel directly from a renderer process."
Also new this year is the inclusion of ARM-based Chromebooks in the competition. In the past, Pwnium competitions have focused solely on Intel-based Chrome OS devices, but this year security researchers will be able to choose between the HP's ARM-based Chromebook 11 (Wi-Fi) or the Acer C720 Chromebook (2GB, Wi-Fi) with Intel's Haswell hardware inside.
The sultan of search will award $110,000 to hackers who discover a browser or system-level compromise in guest mode or as a logged-in user, delivered via web page. An even bigger reward -- $150,000 -- is being offered for discovering compromises with device persistence: guest to guest with interim reboot, also delivered via web page.
"New this year, we will also consider significant bonuses for demonstrating a particularly impressive or surprising exploit," Google stated in a blog post. "Potential examples include defeating kASLR, exploiting memory corruption in the 64-bit browser process or exploiting the kernel directly from a renderer process."
Also new this year is the inclusion of ARM-based Chromebooks in the competition. In the past, Pwnium competitions have focused solely on Intel-based Chrome OS devices, but this year security researchers will be able to choose between the HP's ARM-based Chromebook 11 (Wi-Fi) or the Acer C720 Chromebook (2GB, Wi-Fi) with Intel's Haswell hardware inside.
