A major security vulnerability has been discovered in Google’s Chrome web browser after the internet software and mobile OS giant invited web mischief-makers to participate in this year’s annual Hackathon in a competition called Pwnium.
The hacker, a Russian university student who managed to crack Chrome has been awarded £38,000 for his findings after infiltrating the surfing software via his PC in the Hackathon – a day in which web developers and the elite of in internet offer prizes to those able to break into their online systems. This is the first time in four years that Google Chrome has been compromised in the friendly contest and rivals Microsoft Internet Explorer and Apple Safari browser software have been breached in previous events.
Winning Pwnium participant, Sergey Glazunov was able to compromise an exploit within the Google Chrome’s sandbox restrictions which are put in place to prevent hackers from accessing other parts of the unwitting victim’s computer. Google has raised its hands and on social site Twitter has humbly tweeted the news of the discovery and praising the Russian for picking out the crucial flaw.
To qualify for a generous cash prize, applying hackers must hand all findings over to Google or else no prize is awarded. A “Full Chrome Pwn” – the likes of which was found by Glazunov – wins a top share in the prize fund!
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