Microsoft launches hacking event with $4 million in rewards
Microsoft has announced the launch of Zero Day Quest, a one-of-a-kind hacking event to improve security for its cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) products. The announcement was made at the company's annual Ignite conference in Chicago. The event will kick off today and continue until January 19, 2025. It gives participants a chance to earn multiplied bounty awards for finding vulnerabilities in specific scenarios.
Zero Day Quest offers exclusive opportunities
The Zero Day Quest event also gives participants an exclusive chance to qualify for an invite-only onsite hacking event in Redmond, Washington, in 2025. Along with this, Microsoft is also offering double bounty awards for AI vulnerabilities reported by security researchers. The tech giant will also give these researchers direct access to its AI engineers and the company's AI Red Team.
Microsoft's commitment to AI security
Tom Gallagher, VP of Engineering at the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC), said the new hacking event would be the biggest of its kind. He noted an additional $4 million in potential awards is up for grabs for research into high-impact areas, particularly cloud and AI. Gallagher stressed Zero Day Quest hopes to offer new opportunities for the security community to work with Microsoft engineers and security researchers.
Zero Day Quest: Part of Microsoft's Secure Future initiative
The Zero Day Quest event comes as part of Microsoft's Secure Future Initiative (SFI), a cybersecurity engineering effort it launched in November 2023. The initiative was launched to improve cybersecurity protection across its products after the US Department of Homeland Security's Cyber Safety Review Board released a report criticizing Microsoft's security culture as inadequate and in need of an overhaul.
Microsoft's response to recent security breaches
In May, Chinese hackers breached Microsoft's cloud-based Exchange email platform, stealing over 60,000 emails from US State Department accounts. Other security flaws in different Microsoft products and platforms have also been exploited in widespread attacks. These incidents highlight the importance of initiatives like Zero Day Quest and SFI in strengthening cybersecurity measures across the company's product range.
