Pwn2Own contest puts $75,000 bounty on VMware Workstation bypass

From PC World: The Pwn2Own hacking contest will return in March, pitting researchers against the most popular browsers and operating systems. The novelty: Contestants can win a $75,00 prize for escaping a VMware virtual machine.

Contestants will be able to exploit Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome on fully patched versions of 64-bit Windows 10 and Apple Safari on OS X El Capitan. System or root-level privilege escalation pays extra, as does escaping from the virtual machine.

Every year, Pwn2Own, at the CanSecWest security conference, has slightly modified rules, and 2016 is no different. Adobe Reader, Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer are no longer on the contest's target list. Adobe Flash remains, but only the version that comes bundled with Microsoft Edge.

Exploiting Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge will earn hackers $65,000, while exploiting Apple Safari on Mac only $40,000. Achieving system-level access on Windows or root access on Mac OS X would add another $20,000 to the final payout.

The significant prize differences between Chrome, Edge and Safari exploits might stem from protections on Windows offered by the Microsoft Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET).

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