Typically with any vulnerability that is publicly shown at Pwn2Own, onsite vendor representatives are privately provided the full details of any demonstrated flaw. The flaw itself was triggered by a researcher who only had basic user access but was able to elevate privileges with the vulnerability to become the root administrative account user. Abdul Hariri, senior vulnerability researcher with ZDI, confirmed to eWEEK that the flaw found was in the Linux 4.8 kernel used by the Ubuntu 16.10 distribution that was hacked on stage at Pwn2Own. “The Chaitin Security Research Lab welcomes Ubuntu Linux to Pwn2Own with a Linux kernel heap out-of-bound access,” ZDI wrote in a blog post.įor its efforts, the Chaitin Security Research Lab was awarded a $15,000 prize. Researchers did not shy away from Linux’s first time at Pwn2Own, taking direct aim at the open-source operating system. While Pwn2Own has always taken aim at web browsers, the 2017 event is the first that provided Linux, and specifically the Ubuntu 16.10 Linux distribution, as a target. The Pwn2Own 2017 event marks the 10th year for the annual hacking competition and is once again being held at the CanSecWest Conference in Vancouver. In total, Trend Micro’s Zero Day Initiative (ZDI), which operates the contest, has awarded researchers $233,000 for their efforts. The Pwn2Own hacking competition began on March 15, and security researchers have already successfully exploited Ubuntu Linux, Microsoft Edge, Apple Safari and Adobe Reader.

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