Trend Micro is all set to offer a $500,000 security reward for those participating at the mobile edition of the Pwn2Own hacking contest which is going to be held consecutively for the sixth time this year. The event is scheduled to be held at the PacSec 2017 conference in Tokyo Nov 1-2.
Pwn2Own has both desktop and mobile events operated by Trend Micro’s Zero Day Initiative (ZDI).
In the recently held Pwn2Own event of 2017 held in March, security researchers displayed their capabilities in exploiting vulnerabilities for desktop and servers. The event witnessed 51 new zero day vulnerabilities and was awarded a total of $823,000 for their efforts.
Last year, in October 2016, security researchers were awarded prize money of $215,000 for successfully demonstrating new zero day exploits in Android and iPhone devices.
This year, Trend Micro has increased the prize money to $500,000 and is said to award researchers who successfully exploit Apple iPhone 7, Samsung Galaxy S8, Google Pixel and Huawei Mate9 Pro devices.
Trend Micro is also inviting security researchers who could expose holes not only in browsers but also in Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Messaging services.
Researchers who successfully demonstrate zero day exploits on Wi-Fi, SMS and MMS messaging services will be awarded prize money of $60,000.
Note- Trend Micro will record all the zero day exploits reported by researchers and will then report those incidents on a secret note to impacted vendors.
In the past, the Japanese multinational security software vendor used to offer a window of 120 days for companies to patch any demonstrated flaws. Now, the time frame has been reduced to just 90 reasons for obvious reasons.
More details about the event are awaited!
