Pwn2Own 2020 Day1 -researchers earned $180K for hacking Windows, Ubuntu, and macOS

During the first day of the Pwn2Own 2020 hacking competition, participants earned a total of $180,000 for exploits targeting Windows 10, Ubuntu Desktop and macOS.

The Coronavirus outbreak hasn’t stopped the Pwn2Own hacking conference, for the first time its organizer, the Zero Day Initiative (ZDI), has decided to arrange the event allowing the participants to remotely demonstrate their exploits.

On the first day of Pwn2Own 2020, a team from the Georgia Tech Systems Software & Security Lab (@SSLab_Gatech) successfully exploited a kernel privilege escalation to execute code on macOS through Safari. The attack chain involved six vulnerabilities and allowed the team to earn $70,000.

“1000 – The Georgia Tech Systems Software & Security Lab (@SSLab_Gatech) team of Yong Hwi Jin (@jinmo123), Jungwon Lim (@setuid0x0_), and Insu Yun (@insu_yun_en) targeting Apple Safari with a macOS kernel escalation of privilege.” reads the official page of the event.

“SUCCESS – The team from Georgia Tech used a six bug chain to pop calc and escalate to root. They earn $70,000 USD and 7 Master of Pwn points.”

The popular Team Fluoroacetate (Amat Cama and Richard Zhu) that won past editions, earned $40,000 for a local privilege escalation exploit targeting Windows 10. Zhu also earned another $40,000 for another privilege escalation exploit targeting Windows 10.

Manfred Paul of the RedRocket CTF team earned $30,000 for a local privilege escalation exploit targeting Ubuntu Desktop. The hack exploits an improper input validation bug.

On the second day of Pwn2Own 2020, participants will attempt to hack Oracle VirtualBox, VMware Workstation and Adobe Reader.

Below the schedule of the day2 of the event:

• 1000 – Phi Phạm Hồng (@4nhdaden) of STAR Labs (@starlabs_sg) targeting Oracle VirtualBox in the Virtualization category.
• 1200 – The Fluoroacetate team of Amat Cama and Richard Zhu targeting Adobe Reader with a Windows local privilege escalation.
• 1400 – The Synacktiv team of Corentin Bayet (@OnlyTheDuck) and Bruno Pujos (@BrunoPujos) targeting the VMware Workstation in the Virtualization category.
• 1600 – Special demonstration from Lucas Leong of the Zero Day Initiative against Oracle VirtualBox.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – Pwn2Own, cybercrime)

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