Chinese Hackers hacked iPhone and Google Nexus and won $215,000 at Mobile Pwn2Own contest. Hackers also stole iPhone Pics and exploited two iOS vulnerabilities.
Hackers Won $215,000 For Hacking iPhone 6S and Nexus 6P
Bug bounty programs and some other White hat hacking competitions are the hot trends in the digital world. One of the popular of such competitions is Pwn2Own where White hat hackers are invited to defeat any software or hardware. Recently, Tencent Keen Security Lab team hackers have won $215,000 for hacking into iPhone 6s and Nexus 6P.
A group of Chinese hackers known as Tencent Keen Security Lab Team won US $215,000 to perform three successfully exploits on the Nexus 6P and iPhone 6s. They managed to hack the devices during Pwn2Owncontest run by Trend Micro Zero Day Initiative (ZDI)
The team has collected more than half the money offered as a prize to anyone who could hack the devices Nexus 6P and iPhone 6s. The hackers totally broke the security of Nexus 6P, hackers have combined two pre-existing Android exploits along with some other weaknesses in Android OS. Thus, they managed to install a malicious application without requiring any user interaction.
The ZDI awarded them a whopping $102,500 for hacking into Google’s Nexus 6P. Then hackers approached the iPhone 6s and also managed to install a malicious app, but it did not survive a reboot due to a default configuration setting, which prevented persistence. The ZDI awarded hackers $60,000 for the vulnerabilities they used this attack.
Keen Kab also exploited two iOS vulnerabilities through which they stole pictures from the device and for this Keen Security Lab Team was awarded $52,500 with this the total of $375,000 offered from the Trend Micro’s Zero day initiative, The Keen Lab Team researchers took home $215,000.
