Ethical hackers at Pwn2Own can earn $1 million for exploits to prevent breaches before they happen
Trend Micro conductor of the Zero Day Initiative (ZDI), the world’s largest vendor-agnostic bug bounty program, expects near record participation and over $1 million in prizes to be awarded at this week’s consumer-focused Pwn2Own contest in Toronto. The ZDI event pays the world’s leading freelance security researchers for the responsible discovery and disclosure of vulnerabilities in major software and hardware devices.
Kevin Simzer, COO at Trend: “Trend ZDI gets cyber weapons off the streets before a breach can even be considered. We are so proud to be aligned with Google and Synology as our event sponsors as we elevate security standards for the entire industry. We all agree that this proactive approach is critical to staying ahead of cybercriminals.”
The disclosures discovered through the ZDI at Pwn2Own and year-round allow vendors to quickly understand and fix vulnerabilities before cybercriminals exploit them, ultimately benefiting organizations that use the impacted software or hardware. ZDI research has shown that vendors are increasingly neglecting to patch software vulnerabilities that are disclosed to them, which further sets apart the superior risk protection received by Trend customers.
The immediate awareness of these vulnerabilities means that Trend customers and their end users can be protected 70+ days in advance of the rest of the world. Over 1,000 vulnerabilities in software used around the world have been disclosed through the ZDI in 2023 so far.
Decreasing vulnerabilities in the real world has a direct correlation to decreasing an organizations’ attack surface available to threat actors. Security teams continue to be plagued by things that exceed their purview, which can be office hardware and employee’s home office devices such as, smartphones, NAS devices, cameras, printers and routers.