Zoom Video Communications : Sponsors Pwn2Own Security Competition

Security & Privacy

Zoom Sponsors Pwn2Own Security Competition

Matt Nagel

April 5, 20213 min read

The cybersecurity industry is a vast ecosystem of technology providers, researchers, and white hat hackers, all determined to protect organizations and end users alike from potential threats. Twice a year, members of this ecosystem come together to ethically hack some of the biggest technology vendors during Pwn2Own, an event designed to identify and flag vulnerabilities before they're exploited by threat actors.

To show our support for this important industry tradition, Zoom is participating in and sponsoring this year's Pwn2Own, taking place April 6-8.

What is Pwn2Own?

Started by Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative (ZDI), Pwn2Own is a bi-yearly, competitive security conference offering millions of dollars in cash and prizes to contestants who successfully hack one of the selected companies as part of the competition.

The contest evolves as the technology industry does, with the ZDI team adding new categories with the rise of certain innovations. For instance, the Virtualization category was added in light of the cloud computing boom and Enterprise Communications will be a new category at the upcoming 2021 event.

How does Pwn2Own work?

Pwn2Own typically gathers security researchers together on a conference floor, as participants race against one another to hack that year's featured software or hardware. This year, however, the Pwn2Own team is creating a hybrid contest. Contestants can either submit their exploit via white paper for the ZDI team members in Toronto and Austin to run, or they can work on an exploit remotely. The event will also be live streamed on Twitch and YouTube. The categories featured in the upcoming contest include:

• Virtualization
• Web Browser
• Enterprise Applications
• Server
• Local Escalation of Privilege
• Enterprise Communications
• Automotive

Zoom's role at Pwn2Own

With today's organizations managing remote or hybrid workforces, solutions like Zoom are fundamental for enabling successful collaboration. That's why the ZDI team added the new Enterprise Communications category to the April 2021 Pwn2Own. If a contestant is able to successfully exploit one of the featured communications solutions, they could potentially earn $200,000 in return.

We're proud to be an official sponsor of the event as a way to encourage active participation in ethical hacking and continue to enhance the security of our platform.

An industry united

Events like Pwn2Own bring the security community together to achieve the best result: end user protection. As we continue to grow as a company, we look forward to any insights and findings that emerge out of the competition. We're committed to continuously vetting our solutions and abiding by industry standards to help make the Zoom experience safe and secure for users.

To get more information about Pwn2Own, be sure to check out the event blog. And to learn more about Zoom's approach to security and related resources, explore our Trust Center.

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