To compete in the Tianfu Cup, an elite Chinese hacking contest, the country’s top white-hat hackers gathered in the city of Chengdu to test zero-days against some of the world’s most popular apps, including Apple’s Safari, Google’s Chrome, and Microsoft Edger browsers, ZDNet is reporting.
Over the weekend, Chinese security researchers successfully hacked all three desktop browsers, as well as Office 365 and Adobe PDF Reader. The hackers also exploited the D-Link DIR-878 router and VMWare Workstation, with Team 360Vulcan, a former Pwn2Own winner, topping the charts.
Team 360Vulcan, however, gave up on their attempt to exploit iOS in their highly awaited session, which was also scheduled last to end the tournament:
In the spring of 2018, the Chinese government barred security researchers from participating in hacking contests organized abroad, such as Pwn2Own. The TianfuCup was set up a few months later, as a response to the ban, and as a way for local researchers to keep their skills sharp. The first edition was held in the fall of 2018 to great success, with researchers successfully hacking apps like Edge, Chrome, Safari, iOS, Xiaomi, Vivo, VirtualBox, and more.
The organizers of the tournament will be reporting the bugs discovered to all respective vendors at the competition’s end.
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