Google to offer $2.7 million prize at hacking contest

Google Hacking contest

 Search engine giant Google will offer $2.7 million to researchers who can hack its browser-based operating system Chrome OS as part of its Pwnium hacking contest to be held in March this year.

This year, Pwnium 4, will be hosted in March at the CanSecWest security conference in Vancouver, Canada.

Google will also pay $150,000 for providing an exploit to be able to persistently compromise an HP or Acer Chromebook, ie hacking the device to retain control even after a reboot.

The earlier editions of Pwnium competitions focussed on Intel-based Chrome OS devices, but this year Google will allow researchers to also choose from ARM-based Chromebook, the HP Chromebook 11 (Wi-Fi) and the Acer C720 Chromebook (2GB Wi-Fi) based on Intel's Haswell microarchitecture.