Pwn2Own hacking competition expands to industrial control systems - CyberScoop

Pwn2Own hacking competition expands to industrial control systems - CyberScoop: For years, Pwn2Own, a competition that rewards researchers for finding previously unknown software flaws, has focused on code used in enterprise IT networks rather than programs that support critical infrastructure operations. That is all going to change in January, when the contest heads to Miami and exposes white-hat hackers to popular software and protocols used in industrial control systems (ICS). Contestants will have a matter of minutes to demonstrate zero-day exploits that they’ve developed beforehand. Cash and other prizes worth a total of $250,000 will be available to winners, Zero Day Initiative (ZDI), the organization that runs Pwn2Own, said Monday. For an ICS industry accustomed to non-disclosure agreements related to security testing, the Pwn2Own free-for-all format is a “radical concept,” said Dale Peterson, the founder of the annual S4 security conference, which will host the Pwn2Own competition. The vulnerabilities that Pwn2Own participants discover are revealed to the vendor responsibly so they can be fixed. “That’s saying, ‘We have …

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