Google dares hackers to hack Chrome OS – and will pay $2.71828 million as reward

Sundar Pichai, senior vice president for Chrome at Google Inc., holds up a new Chromebook Pixel as he speaks during a launch event in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Thursday, Feb. 21, 2013. Photo: Yahoo! News

Jan 24: Rarely do you find a company that puts itself in the crosshairs of hackers, especially when you know there are some *very* talented ones out there (remember Anonymous?). In a time where companies try to stay out of the limelight, Google is doing the exact opposite – and for the fourth time, in fact.

Google is offering $2.71828 million for hackers who manage to hack into Chrome OS, in their annual security competition event, Google Pwnium. The number itself is a geek joke, actually – it’s the mathematical constant ‘e’, which programmers use when writing algorithms. Translated into local numbers, that’s RM9million / SGD3.5 million / P123 million.

Why is Google doing this, you ask? According to their blog announcement, they want to plug all security holes in their system, and learn from ‘security researchers’ (which I suppose is a nicer way to call hackers). It’s a bold approach, but it’s a fantastic way to ensure their software is truly secure (as opposed to Microsoft Windows and Internet Explorer, which had numerous security loopholes for years).

If you’re a ‘security researcher’ who’s keen on taking up Google’s challenge, e-mail security@chromium.org to register. Registration will close at 5:00 p.m. PST Monday, March 10th, 2014 (9am Tuesday for us in SEA). Official rules here.

source: Michael Kwan, Yahoo! News