November 4, 2021
Security researchers collected a total of $362,500 on the first day of Pwn2Own 2021. Pwn2Own 2021 is the annual computer hacking competition in which participants are challenged to exploit widely-used software and mobile devices with previously unknown bugs.
Attendees were able to hack Canon, HP, Western Digital, Cisco, Sonos, TP-Link and NETGEAR printers, routers, NAS devices and speakers on the first day of the four-day event, which attracted 22 contestants who signed up for a total of 58 entries.
While security researchers can win a total of up to $200,000 for a single challenge, $150,000 cash prizes and a $50,000 bonus in the event that their iPhone or Pixel browser runs exploits with kernel-level privileges, the DEVCORE and THEORI teams were the biggest winners on the first day.
DEVCORE, a team of Orange Tsai, Angelboy and Meh Chang won a total of $100,000 after taking over several devices, including the Sonos One Speaker, Canon ImageCLASS MF644Cdw and HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M283fdw printers.
The THEORI team won $80,000 for successfully hacking Western Digital’s My Cloud Pro Series PR4100 and 3TB My Cloud Home Personal Cloud NAS devices.
For more information, read the original story in Bleeping Computer.
