The developers launched the latest version of most popular browsers Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer 11 and Safari with its patches installed but it hardly took minutes before the contestants hacked them all by exploiting security vulnerabilities.
In order to find great talent and to find all the security holes found in browsers that could lead to potential hacks, major companies including HP, Microsoft, Google and others participate in the Pwn2Own hacking contest every year.
The latest version of the browsers with multiple patches were supported to be hacker proof but within two days, a bunch of expert hackers proved them wrong. They won a bounty worth of $557,500 within the two days, the contest was held.
On the first day of the Hewlett Packard "Zero Day" initiative, a hacked codenamed ilxu1a found a memory vulnerability in Firefox and walked away with $15,000 in seconds. Firefox was exploited twice but other browsers including Chrome and Safari was not so safe either. JungHoon Lee, an expert found a Chrome bug and got received $75,000 for his contribution. He also exploited IE and Safari, winning $115,000 in total combed with an added bonus of $35,000, confirms Techspot.
During the two day event, company representatives and security experts who were behind the browsers were present to understand the bugs so that they could fix them back home. Mozilla Firefox engineer, Daniel Veditz confirmed that their team was already finding a solution for the vulnerabilities exploited during the event, as reported by eWeek.
"With every passing year, we make the browsers stronger but there are always attackers who find a bug or vulnerability. At Pwn2Own, we bring the best security experts from the world to help us identify those shortcomings as well as allow hackers to earn through legitimate methods. It helps our vendors make better browsers for the upcoming year," said a spokesperson on behalf of the organizer, HP.