Google has announced a new six-month-long Android Hacking contest to strengthen online security and give bug bounty enthusiasts a chance to develop Android exploits.
The announcement about the contest, dubbed Project Prize Zero, was made yesterday by the search giant. It is a free to enter contest, during which security researchers would be asked to develop exploits capable of compromising Android devices.
While everyone is free to enter, the mega prize of $200,000 will be given to the first researcher who manages to create a working exploit, second place will be awarded $100,000 and third rank will get $50,000.
With the contest, Google further aims to bolster its Vulnerabilities Rewards Program (VRP), which is the company’s in-house bug bounty system. It too, dishes out monetary rewards to researchers who file or inform Google about grave security flaws.
If researchers want to participate in the contest, they have to file a bug report with the Android VRP, describing their detailed plan of action.
However, winning the contest is quite a task; researchers are required to achieve an RCE (remote control execution) state on manifold devices running on a range of Android OS versions. The only information the researcher will be entitled to is the device’s phone number and email address.
Also, to participate in the contest, researchers have to be 13 years or older. A panel of judge will be deciding the winner.
