Microsoft announces its own Black Hat-like hacking event with big rewards for AI security

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Microsoft announces Zero Day Quest, a new hacking event for security researchers
An in-person event will also take place
Bug bounties for AI-related issues has also been doubled

Microsoft has announced an open to all research challenge to encourage researchers to discover high-impact vulnerabilities in its programs.

Zero Day Quest will offer bug bounties for researchers who report flaws in Microsoft AI, Azure, Identity, Dynamics 365 and Power platform, and M365.

The challenge will run until January 19, 2025, and will be subject to existing bounty program terms, the safe harbor policy, and additional terms and conditions.

AI bugs worth double

Microsoft hopes the event will bring together the security community and encourage collaboration between researchers and engineers to help keep all its users safe.

Alongside an online event, the best 45 researchers (by bounty awarded amount) will be invited to an all-expenses paid Onsite Zero Day Quest event in Washington, with the 10 highest ranked researchers from the 2024 Azure, Dynamics, and Office leaderboards also invited.

AI has been dominating the security conversation for the last year, and to reflect the growing concerns for AI security, Microsoft has doubled the AI bounty awards. Other bounty multipliers have also been included, such as the discovery of critical and important severity Remote Code Execution and Elevation of Privilege flaws.

Microsoft has made security its number one priority, embarking on its secure future initiative to ensure ‘security above all else’ in order to protect users and businesses.

“This new hacking event will be the largest of its kind, with an additional $4 million in potential awards for research into high-impact areas, specifically cloud and AI,” said Tom Gallagher, VP of Engineering for Microsoft Security Response Center.

“Zero Day Quest will provide new opportunities for the security community to work hand in hand with Microsoft engineers and security researchers – bringing together the best minds in security to share, learn, and build community as we work to keep everyone safe.”

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Ellen has been writing for almost four years, with a focus on post-COVID policy whilst studying for BA Politics and International Relations at the University of Cardiff, followed by an MA in Political Communication. Before joining TechRadar Pro as a Junior Writer, she worked for Future Publishing’s MVC content team, working with merchants and retailers to upload content.