Google Will Offer $1 Million In Rewards For Hacking Chrome
For the last three years, Google’s Chrome browser has left the world’s premiere hacking competition unscathed, even as Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari have all been taken down.
Google announced Monday evening that it’s offering up to a million dollars in rewards at the annual Pwn2Own hacking contest, which takes place next week at the CanSecWest security conference in Vancouver. Hackers don’t necessarily need to target Chrome to win a chunk of that money: Google is paying $20,000 to any participant who can exploit hackable bugs in Windows, Flash, or a device driver, security problems that would affect users of all browsers. But for hacks that include flaws specific to Chrome, Google will pay $40,000 each, and for those that exploit only bugs in Chrome, the company will shell out $60,000, up to its million dollar limit.
Since Chrome first appeared as a target in the Pwn2Own contest in 2009, participating hackers haven’t even tried to exploit the browser…that’s a sign that none of the researchers could find a chink in Chrome’s armor.
Even when Google offered an extra $20,000 to anyone who could hack its browsers last year, no one took up the challenge.
via Forbes