Slowly but steadily, the Pwn2Own hacker contest has become an important fixture in the world of testing the security of software applications, operating systems and hardware devices. The computer hacking contest is held annually and gets sponsored by titan-sized technology companies.
Last year, we reported on how a group of French hackers won cash prizes in the competition for uncovering big bugs in the Google Chrome browser. This year, HP TippingPoint, a sponsor of Pwn2Own, has made clear that it is expanding the focus of the competition beyond browsers. Also, Pwn2own 2013 will include $560,000 in prize money for demonstrations of exploits in the major web browsers, Adobe Reader, Adobe Flash or Oracle Java.