As part of a competition that Google are holding in March, the search giant are going to pay out almost $3 million in prize money for people to hack Chrome OS.
What do you get when you take a computer that has to be ‘always on’ and always connected to the Internet for it work properly and a time in history where people are capable of hacking cars, phones and just about anything with a computer chip, with just a bit of technological know how? You will, unfortunately, get an awful lot of people complaining about their devices being hacked, where not even the very best developed consumer devices can offer impenetrable lines of defence against a really determined team of coders. This is the problem that Google faces and would quite like to protect its Chrome OS running devices from, which is why they are prepared to shell out almost $3 million to identify ways in which it can be exploited.
In a contest called ‘pwnium’, set to take place at the CanSecWest security conference in Vancouver, Canada in March, hackers are encourage to register, sign up and try their best to hack the ever-loving code out of Chrome OS, likely so that Google can then figure out how to fix said exploitation before the wider public (and other hackers) catch wind of it. The total figure of prize money is $2.71828 million, which is a reference to the mathematical concept of e, something that’s important to know when putting together algorithms.
But how do hackers get their hands on those many dollars in the prize fund? Google are said to be offering a cool $110,000 to hackers who can hack into either the HP Chromebook 11 or the Acer C720 Chromebook via a web page, with the more lucrative prize of $150,000 going hackers who can not only hack either or both of the Chromebooks via a web page, but are also still able to control the Chromebook even after the device has been rebooted. Hopefully for Google they’ll be able to fix the flaws in Chrome OS that allow it be hacked, thus protecting Chrome OS users from possible security breaches.
We’ll keep you posted once we know more.
Source: LA Times
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