Trend Micro’s annual Pwn2Own has kicked off over at the PacSec Security conference in Tokyo, complete with security researchers spending the day attempting to hack into the iPhone 7, the Samsung Galaxy S8, the Google Pixel, and the Huawei Mate 9 Pro in an effort to win prizes totaling more than $500,000.
And, for better or worse, Apple’s iPhone 7, running the newly-released iOS 11.1, was successfully breached twice Tencent Keen Security Lab. The first hack targeted a Wi-Fi bug and won the team $110,000 and 11 Master of Pwn points, while the second hack targeted the Safari Browser and earned Tencent Keen Security Lab $45,000 and 12 Master of Pwn points.
The group used a total of four bugs to both gain code execution and escalate their user privileges to allow their rogue application to install via a reboot. In addition, the group snagged $60,000 for the WiFi exploit and added $50,000 for the persistence bonus, thereby totaling $110,000 and 11 Master of Pwn points.
The team targeted the Safari Browser, their exploit taking only a few seconds to run during the demonstration. The first bug exploited the browser while the second made use of a system service to allow their software to survive a reboot.
Security researcher Richard Zhu was also able to leverage two bugs to exploit the Safari browser and escape the sandbox to successfully run code on the iPhone 7, earning him $25,000 and 10 Master of Pwn points.
Over the course of the day, researchers were able to locate exploits for the Samsung Galaxy S8 and the Huawei Mate 9 Pro, earning a total of $350,000 in the process.
The Pwn2Own event is part of Trend Micro’s Zero Day Initiative and is designed to reward security researchers for disclosing major vulnerabilities to tech companies like Apple and Google.
Apple employees have been known to attend Pwn2Own competitions in past years, and all vulnerabilities discovered are disclosed to Apple. The company then has 90 days to produce patches for all iOS-related bugs before they’re publicly disclosed.
Via Security Breach Online and MacRumors