An anonymous group of hackers have claimed a $1 million bounty for cracking Apple’s new iO9 operating system through a competition hosted by cyber security firm Zerodium.
The competition, named the ‘The Million Dollar iOS 9 Bug Bounty’ was launched by Zerodium in September and promised a total of three million dollars to individuals or teams who could remotely install an application onto a range of fully updated iO9 devices, without requiring the user to do anything other than visit a webpage or read a text message.
Apple boasts some of the most secure operating systems with their iOS 8 and iOS 9 systems. Zerodium however, stated: ‘But don’t be fooled, secure does not mean unbreakable’. Previously, Apple had said their latest iPhone was unhackable, even for them, but this announcement proves otherwise.
The winning team, who have not been named, are said to have submitted a webpage-based exploit and claimed their prize over the weekend. The details of the exploit are to be kept private, both for security purposes and to protect Zerodium’s investment.
Zerodium gather information about high-risk vulnerabilities affecting web browsers, web servers, mobile phones and operating systems, and pay out high rewards for full exploit details. They encourage any hackers or security researchers to submit details of exploits to them via encrypted email.