Over $1 Million Awarded in Pwn2Own Hacking Competition

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Mar 27, 2023, 08:04 ET

Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative pays record prizes for threat discoveries at historic event

VANCOUVER, BC, March 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Global cybersecurity leader Trend Micro Incorporated (TYO: 4704; TSE: 4704) has announced the winners of its spring Pwn2Own competition held in Vancouver and sponsored by the Zero Day Initiative. Participants discovered 27 unique zero-day vulnerabilities, helping vendors enhance the security of their products and earning the contests a total of $1,035,000 as well as a Tesla Model 3.

To learn more about Pwn2Own Vancouver 2023 and recap highlights of the event, visit zerodayinitiative.com/blog.

Synacktiv won $530,000 and a Tesla Model 3. The team was represented by Eloi Benoist-Vanderbeken, David Berard, Vincent Dehors, Tanguy Dubroca, Thomas Bouzerar, and Thomas Imbert.

"Connected technologies drive our vehicles and power the hybrid workplace, so the more novel vulnerabilities we can find in them, the better," said Brian Gorenc, vice president of threat research at Trend Micro. "Once again Pwn2Own has shown that, as much as we pay out in prize money, the real-world benefits to companies and their customers are worth much more. Congratulations to the team at Synacktiv for their months of hard work leading up to this event."

Researchers from Synacktiv achieved critical successes against Tesla, including a historic attempt that used a heap overflow and an OOB write to exploit Tesla - Infotainment Unconfined Root and earned them the first-ever Tier 2 award at a Pwn2Own competition. The team also executed a successful TOCTOU exploit against Tesla - Gateway.

Other highlights:

STAR Labs executed a 2-bug chain against Microsoft SharePoint for $100,000
Team Viettel used a 2-bug chain against Microsoft Teams for $75,000
AbdulAziz Hariri demonstrated a 6-bug chain against Adobe Reader for $50,000
Windows 11, macOS, and Ubuntu were all exploited during the competition

The overall Master of Pwn winner was Synacktiv with 53 points, winning $530,000 and a Tesla Model 3 as well as a $25,000 winner's bonus. Synacktiv was represented by Eloi Benoist-Vanderbeken, David Berard, Vincent Dehors, Tanguy Dubroca, Thomas Bouzerar, and Thomas Imbert. The top five contestants were:

Synacktiv – $530,000
STAR Labs – $195,000
Team Viettel – $115,000
Qrious Security – $55,000
AbdulAziz Hariri – $50,000

Now in its 16th year, Pwn2Own was held at the Sheraton Wall Center in Vancouver during the CanSecWest conference on March 22-24. The next Pwn2Own competition will take place in Toronto in October.

About Trend Micro

Trend Micro, a global cybersecurity leader, helps make the world safe for exchanging digital information. Fueled by decades of security expertise, global threat research, and continuous innovation, Trend Micro's cybersecurity platform protects hundreds of thousands of organizations and millions of individuals across clouds, networks, devices, and endpoints. As a leader in cloud and enterprise cybersecurity, the platform delivers a powerful range of advanced threat defense techniques optimized for environments like AWS, Microsoft, and Google, and central visibility for better, faster detection and response. With 7,000 employees across 65 countries, Trend Micro enables organizations to simplify and secure their connected world. www.TrendMicro.com.

SOURCE Trend Micro Incorporated