Hack A Nexus 6P Or Nexus 5X And Win $200,000

Google has just announced the launch of its Project Zero Security Contest, which aims to give generous cash prizes to anybody who can successfully hack two of the tech giant’s Nexus devices, namely the Nexus 6P (made by Huawei) and the Nexus 5X (built by LG), supplied only with the handsets’ phone number and email address.

Basically, contestants are allowed to open an email message in Gmail, or open an SMS text message in Messenger, and then figure out a way to gain entry into the Nexus devices. Apart from accessing the email message or text message, contestants are not allowed any other interaction with the handsets. 

Moreover, contestants must be able to take advantage of the same bug in hacking into both Nexus smartphones. The only exception is when the contestants are exploiting a security feature that is found only in one device and not in the other. When that happens, contestants are free to use unique bugs.

For complete details of all the official rules, you can go visit this page. The contest officially ends on March 14th of next year. 

So how generous exactly are the cash prizes? The winner of the contest will be given a cash prize of $200,000, while the second place winner gets to take home a cash prize of $100,000, and finally, the third place winner will get at least $50,000. Apart from all flaunting all those serious hacking skills, the winners will also be made to produce a technical report that documents how they hacked the Nexus 6P and the Nexus 5X. The technical reports will then be featured on the official blog site of Project Zero.

In the past, Google has launched vulnerability rewards programs, in an effort to weed out security bugs that could potentially harm its Android mobile operating system, its Nexus devices, and virtually every smartphone or tablet device that is powered by Android. Despite Google’s efforts, hacking contests still have proven to be popular in detecting high quality security bugs. Sensing it would be cool to join in on the fun, Google has decided to launch its own contest -- thus, the Project Zero Price has begun.

Hacking contests often have the effect of exposing bugs that are less commonly reported, and helping immensely in getting those detected bugs fixed. With its contest, Google is certainly hoping that the bugs get detected before they get a chance to affect end users, i.e. owners of Android powered mobile devices.