Top ethical hackers are currently competing in Tokyo. They have discovered nearly 40 zero-day vulnerabilities in Tesla and other products.
The first car-focused Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) Pwn2Own contest takes place from January 24-26. ZDI is the world’s largest bug bounty program, encouraging ethical hackers to find and report vulnerabilities in products and improve digital safety.
It was a big day for security discoveries with 24 zero-day exploits found. The French Synacktiv Team earned $100,000 for finding a three-bug chain against the Tesla Modem, $60,000 for a two-bug chain against the Ubiquiti Connect EV Station, and another $60,000 for a two-bug chain against the JuiceBox 40 Smart EV Charging Station.
The UK’s NCC Group earned $30,000 for finding a security issue with the Phoenix Contact CHARX SEC-3100 charging controller, and $40,000 for identifying three bugs in the Pioneer DMH-WT7600NEX digital receiver.
At the time of writing, a further 15 zero-day vulnerabilities had been discovered and demonstrated in exploits on day two of the competition.
Synacktiv successfully found and exploited two security vulnerabilities in the Tesla Infotainment System, earning $100,000. They also discovered and exploited three vulnerabilities in Automotive Grade Linux, resulting in a $35,000 reward.
NCC Group used two bugs to hack the Alpine Halo9 iLX-F509 media receiver and won $20,000.
The total prize money given out so far is over $1m. Vendors have 90 days to fix the vulnerabilities found in the competition before ZDI discloses them publicly.
In 2022, the Trend Micro initiative warned that customers were at risk due to poor vendor patching and confusing advisories. This made it difficult for network defenders to accurately assess their risk exposure and increased the possibility of faulty or incomplete patches.
The disclosure policy of the company was changed from 120 days to a range of 90 to 30 days, depending on the level of importance.
Pwn2Own Automotive concludes tomorrow.