Viettel’s security firm triumphs at world cyber-attack contest

The Pwn2Own 2021 contest is held virtually. (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi (VNA) – Viettel Cyber Security Company, a subsidiary of ViettelMilitary Industry and Telecoms Group, triumphed at the Pwn2Own 2021 contest -one of the world largest cyber-attack competitions – which was held virtuallyby Trend Micro’s Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) onApril 7 and 8.

This was the second time the Viettel Cyber Security Company has attended thecontest, aiming to affirm its pioneer and leading role in the field ofinformation security in Vietnam while learning experience from foreign experts.

ZDI described this year’s event as one of the largest in Pwn2Own history, with23 separate entries targeting ten different products in the categories of WebBrowers, Virtualisation, Servers, Local Escalation of Privilege, and EnterpriseCommunications.

The contest aimed to detect security vulnerabilities in smart devices so thatmanufacturers can immediately fix them, thus helping to keep client informationsafe.

The Viettel team targeted Windows 10 in the Local Escalation of Privilegecategory. It used an integer overflow in Windows 10 to escalate from a regularuser to SYSTEM privileges. This earned them 40,000 USD, and four points towardsMaster of Pwn.

Targeting Microsoft Exchange in the Server category, the team successfullydemonstrated their code execution on the Exchange server, helping them get 7.5Master of Pwn points./.

VNA