Security News

Over the course of two days, hacking teams ranging from Flourescence, RedRocket CTF and Synacktiv attempted to hack Adobe's Acrobat Reader and Apple's macOS and virtualization platforms such as Oracle VirtualBox. During one hacking attempt, the Fluoroacetate team of Amat Cama and Richard Zhu, targeted Adobe Reader and then Windows with a local privilege escalation attack.

Over the course of two days, hacking teams ranging from Flourescence, RedRocket CTF and Synacktiv attempted to hack Adobe's Acrobat Reader and Apple's macOS and virtualization platforms such as Oracle VirtualBox. During one hacking attempt, the Fluoroacetate team of Amat Cama and Richard Zhu, targeted Adobe Reader and then Windows with a local privilege escalation attack.

Threatpost editors discuss this week's top news stories from COVID-19 themed malware attacks to Pwn2Own updates.

Threatpost editors discuss this week's top news stories from COVID-19 themed malware attacks to Pwn2Own updates.

On the second day of the Pwn2Own 2020 hacking competition, participants earned a total of $90,000 for exploits targeting Oracle VirtualBox, Adobe Reader and Windows. Amat Cama and Richard Zhu of team Fluoroacetate earned $50,000 for demonstrating that they could hijack a system by exploiting use-after-free vulnerabilities in Adobe Reader and the Windows kernel.

On the first day of the Pwn2Own 2020 hacking competition, participants earned a total of $180,000 for demonstrating exploits targeting Windows 10, Ubuntu Desktop and macOS. Pwn2Own typically takes place at the CanSecWest cybersecurity conference in Vancouver, Canada, and participants have to attend in person. On the first day of Pwn2Own 2020, a team from the Georgia Tech Systems Software & Security Lab successfully executed code on macOS through Safari.

Researchers who took part this week in the Zero Day Initiative's Pwn2Own Miami hacking competition have earned a total of $280,000 for exploits targeting industrial control systems and associated protocols. The teams and individuals who signed up for the hacking contest were Incite Team, Flashback Team, Claroty Research, Ben McBride, Fabius Artrel, Michael Stepankin, Lucas Georges, and a nameless team comprising Tobias Scharnowski, Niklas Breitfeld, and Ali Abbasi from the Horst Goertz Institute for IT-Security in Germany.

The very first Pwn2Own hacking competition that exclusively focuses on the industrial control systems has kicked off in Miami. On Day One, overall, there were six successful hacking attempts and two partially successful attempts against eight hacking targets, according to ZDI. On Day Two, there were three successful hacks and two partials against four total targets.

Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative on Thursday announced the targets and prizes for the 2020 Pwn2Own competition, which is set to take place on March 18-20 in Vancouver at the CanSecWest conference. Pwn2Own 2019 introduced the automotive category and participants were invited to hack a Tesla Model 3.

The latest edition of the bi-annual hacking contest saw creative exploits in new device categories.