Chrome OS screen

(Phys.org) —Hackers at a please-hack-me contest at the CanWest security conference in Vancouver, BC, went home empty-handed. The contest during the Vancouver three-day conference on digital security ended up with enlightened participants capable of attempts nonetheless missing out on a massive pile of cash—the bounty was $3.14159 million—the reward for their efforts if successful. They were unable to break into Google's Chrome OS. This Pwnium 3 contest invited hackers to penetrate any holes they could find in the Chrome operating system.

Pwnium is a competition to challenge the brightest minds in security to find browser vulnerabilities and attack them. They missed victory at this year's Pwnium competition, focused on Google's Chrome OS. As their target machine, they were given the Samsung Series 5 550 Chromebook, running the latest version of Chrome. The researchers were allowed to use any software available on the system including kernel and drivers to carry out attacks. The strings attached to the reward were that winners would have been expected to list, for Google, the vulnerabilities used in the attack, as well as any code used.

Although there were no clear winners, Google said some attempts were impressive enough to merit attention. "We did not receive any winning entries but we are evaluating some work that may qualify as partial exploits."

Money paid or not, Google wins. A spokesperson said that events like this keep Chrome users safe, and also said that Google appreciated the efforts of researchers who help Google out in this safety effort.

In a March 7 Google+ post, Google added, "Pwnium competitions continue to inspire us as some of the brightest minds in security show off their creativity & engineering skills. We can't wait to see who will take home a piece of the $3.14 million 'pi', and help us enhance security for Chrome and the Internet overall."

In a subsequent update, when it became clear there was no winner, the Google announcement said, "We are evaluating some work that may qualify as partial exploits… see you next time!"

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