A team of security researchers at Tencent Keen Security Lab managed to win about $215,000 after they had succeeded in infecting a patched and fully updated Nexus 6P. The hackers entered the competition which allows for white hat hackers to come and scour through networks for flaws and bugs famously known as the bug bounty program.
The whole notion of having security researchers go through your data and for them to release or discover a flaw in your hardware and software has its own critics and admirers. One fine example of the program is the Pwn2Own competition for White Hat hackers where they are invited to try and challenge the software or the hardware.
The recent Pwn2Own competition which was fortunately sponsored by Trend Micro saw hackers get away with cash prizes for the ability to infiltrate the device, accessing and modifying the user info and also infecting the device with some fake and harmful apps.
Hackers can also be appraised for successfully being able to unlock some of the highest profile manufacturers. Hackers who were present at the competition were given the Nexus 6P, the iPhone 6S and the Samsung Galaxy S6 to hack it.
The security team from the Tencent Keen Security Lab, a security firm based in China took on the challenge and they utilized some Android bugs which they used to infect the Nexus 6P. The team also managed to discover that some of the flaws which they discovered were already in the phone despite it having been updated with the most recent security updates. When they install a rogue app, the researchers could then access the data on the phone, even though they could not unlock the phone.
The Chinese firm team also managed to get one other malicious app on the iPhone 6S system even though the device had been rebooted countless times. The attempt was given a half pass. The team failed to do anything to the Samsung Galaxy S7 phone.
The team was highly rewarded for their attempts on the devices netting a high $102,500. They managed to get the money after excelling in the Sniper, Strength, and the Stealth categories. The team also had the maximum exploits and because of that they claimed the title of Master of Pwn. They had 45 points to their name and they were awarded $215,000.
According to the rules of the competition, Google will be briefed about the hacking attempts so that they can fix it.
