Security Researcher Earns $100,000 for Safari Exploit in Pwn2Own Hacking Contest

Each year, the Zero Day Initiative hosts a "Pwn2Own" hacking contest where security researchers can earn money for finding serious vulnerabilities in major platforms like Windows and macOS.


This 2021 Pwn2Own virtual event kicked off earlier this week and featured 23 separate hacking attempts across 10 different products including web browsers, virtualization, servers, and more. A three-day affair that spans multiple hours a day, this year's Pwn2Own event was livestreamed on YouTube.

Apple products were not heavily targeted in Pwn2Own 2021, but on day one, Jack Dates from RET2 Systems executed a Safari to kernel zero-day exploit and earned himself $100,000. He used an integer overflow in Safari and an OOB write to get kernel-level code execution, as demoed in the tweet below.


Other hacking attempts during the Pwn2Own event targeted Microsoft Exchange, Parallels, Windows 10, Microsoft Teams, Ubuntu, Oracle VirtualBox, Zoom, Google Chrome, and Microsoft Edge.

A serious Zoom flaw was demonstrated by Dutch researchers Daan Keuper and Thijs Alkemade, for example. The duo exploited a trio of flaws to get total control of a target PC using the Zoom app with no user interaction.


Pwn2Own participants received more than $1.2 million in rewards for the bugs they discovered. Pwn2Own gives vendors like Apple 90 days to produce a fix for the vulnerabilities that are uncovered, so we can expect the bug to be addressed in an update in the not too distant future.

Tag: Safari

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Top Rated Comments

antiprotest Avatar
55 months ago
Please set up a reward for fixing iCloud Tabs sync. Apparently the people at Apple cannot do it after like a decade.
Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)
mistasopz Avatar
55 months ago

The Chinese government is run by Chinese. And yes, if you signaling out Chinese government, you are basically saying Chinese are cheaters and Chinese are theft.

But every government in the world do spy on each other, stealing information etc.
That's some pretty loopy logic there. If I criticise the Canadian government am I racist towards Canadians (after all it's run by Canadians)? Of course not, what ridiculousness. There are 1.4 billion Chinese people and being critical of their leadership is not the same thing as hating 1.4 billion people because of their ethnicity. And if you think you think they are your friend, you better read up on your own history (Nortel IP theft for example).
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
mistasopz Avatar
55 months ago

Aren’t you are being racist when you single out Chinese government?
The Chinese government is not a race.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
steve217 Avatar
55 months ago
Given the cost of a breach, $100k is a bargain.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
BWhaler Avatar
55 months ago
I always worry given Zoom’s ties to China and the slip-shot way they went for growth above all, if some of these “flaws” are actually backdoors.

As convienent and pervasive as Zoom is, no way I would trust it if I was a CTO or enterprise security officer.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
T Coma Avatar
55 months ago
Ah yes, the old integer overflow and OOB write trick. Classic.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)