March 3rd, 2012: Pwn2Own has concluded!
Congratulations to VUPEN for placing first and netting $60,000 for demonstrating 2 0day vulnerabilities; one for Internet Explorer and one for Chrome.
Congratulations to Vincenzo Iozzo and Willem Pinckaers for demonstrating a Firefox 0day and winning $30,000 for placing 2nd.
January 23, 2012
When the New Year rolls around the team here at the HP Zero Day Initiative roll up our sleeves and begin preparation for the annual Pwn2Own competition. We're excited to announce a new incarnation of the contest that we believe will represent a welcome change both for the competitors as well as the spectators at the event.
As the vulnerability purchasing landscape is a dynamic one, we have decided to re-architect the contest to more closely reflect the value of the exploits demonstrated. As such, there will be only 3 winners this year. That way the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place finishers will walk away with more cash than ever before. To that end, this year Hewlett-Packard is committing $105,000 USD in cash prizes for the event. We are also proud to announce that Google has once again stepped up to sponsor the event (the only vendor to have ever done so), promising cash prizes for vulnerabilities affecting their Chrome browser.
In the past, the contest has garnered attention worldwide - not only within our information security industry, but with the actual end users. We believe this to be the most valuable aspect of Pwn2Own and continually strive to achieve security awareness to as wide an audience as possible. Announcements regarding the contest will be distributed via the official twitter account @Pwn2Own_Contest as well as being posted here.
Without further ado, you can read the official rules here.
