Google will provide $20,000 and a CR-48 Chrome OS notebook to anyone who can exploit Google Chrome at the fifth annual Pwn2Own contest, which will take place between March 9th and March 11 th.

The contest is being held as part of the CanSecWest security conference in Vancouver, British Columbia according to Tippingpoint, which will be sponsoring the event. It is the first time an internet browser has promised prize money to the winner of the hacking contest, according to digitaltrends. Participants, who are able to hack other browsers such as Internet Explorer, Safari or Mozilla’s Firefox, will be able to win $15,000 in cash. In addition to prize money, Pwn2Own will be offering $125,000 in an assortment of gifts.

“We’ve upped the ante this time around and the total cash pool allotted for prizes has risen to a whopping $125, 000,” said Aaron Portnoy, the manager of HP TippingPoint‘s security research team for Computerworld.

Mobile phones will also be featured; anyone who can hack Windows phone 7, Iphone 4, the Blackberry 6 OS, or the Android will win $15,000 in addition to getting a device running the operating system, according to digitaltrends.

“Similarly to last year the competition will focus on two main technologies: web browsers and mobile devices,” writes Portnoy at Tippingpoint, ”Staying true to the original intent of the Pwn2Own contest we intend to empirically demonstrate the current security posture of the most prevalent products in use today,” he adds.

As for Google Chrome, in order to win the cash prize, one must find and exploit two vulnerabilities in Google-written code on the first day of the contest. On the second or third day, he or she must use a non-chrome bug to break out of the sandbox.  A successful attack would put $20,000 in the researcher’s pocket, according to Computerworld.

The last date for pre registration to the conference is February 15^th.

If you are looking forward to getting a chrome notebook, you can sign up here and be notified as soon as it’s available.

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