Google Offers $1 Million For Chrome Hacks

Google prepares to open its wallet for reports of security flaws, but outside annual Pwn2Own hacker competition.

Google has raised the total amount it will pay for Chrome security flaws by a factor of fifty compared to last year, but it is doing so outside of the Pwn2Own hacking competition.
In 2011, Google
promised up to $20,000
in rewards for Chrome browser exploits at the
CanSecWest
security conference, where HP TippingPoints Pwn2Own hacking competition is held.
Pwn2Own is a competition in which computer security experts attempt to compromise operating systems and Web browsers using bugs that theyve identified.
This year, Google says it will pay out
as much as $1 million
in reward money. Hackers however will have to reveal quite a few exploitable bugs to win that much: Google will pay at most $60,000 for any single full Chrome exploit.
But even Googles consolation prize--$20,000 for the identification of flaws in non-Chrome software like Flash or Windows--is as much as the total reward purse put forth by the company last year.
[ What happened at Pwn2Own last year? Read
Safari, IE Defeated, Chrome, Firefox Survive
. ]
Google is offering the money through its two-year-old
Chromium Security Rewards program
, which has paid out over $300,000 during its brief lifetime.
This year, Google has decided not to support Pwn2Own because
the contest rules
do not require full disclosure of the exploit.
Full exploits have been handed over in previous years, but its an explicit non-requirement in this years contest, and thats worrisome, said Chris Evans and Justin Schuh, members of Googles Chrome security team, in a blog post. We will therefore be running this alternative Chrome-specific reward program.
Pwn2Own will run
as usual, without Googles sponsorship, from March 7th through March 9th. Hackers will have the option to attack any of the four major browsers--Apple Safari, Google Chrome, Microsoft Internet Explorer, and Mozilla Firefox--on fully patched versions of either Windows 7 or OS X Lion.
The top three winners will be awarded $60,000, $30,000, and $15,000 respectively from HP, and each will have the option of choosing one laptop from a group of three: an Asus Zenbook UX31 with a Core i7 CPU and 256-GB SSD, an Asus Zenbook UX21 with a Core i7 CPU and 256-GB SSD, or a Macbook Air 11 with a Core i7 CPU and 256-GB SSD.
There is a catch worth noting: Exploits must be submitted to and evaluated by Google first, before they are submitted elsewhere.
To protect company and customer data, we need to determine what makes it so vulnerable and appealing. We also need to understand how hackers operate, and what tools and processes they rely on. In our
How (And Why) Attackers Choose Their Targets
report, we explain how to ensure the best defense by thinking like an attacker and identifying the weakest link in your own corporate data chain. (Free registration required.)

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Google Offers $1 Million For Chrome Hacks