Microsoft Launches Zero-Day Quest Hacking Contest with Rewards Up to $5 Million

Microsoft has unveiled the return of its groundbreaking Zero Day Quest initiative, escalating the stakes in cybersecurity research with a staggering total bounty pool of up to $5 million.

Building on the success of last year’s inaugural event, which offered $4 million in awards and garnered overwhelming participation from the global security community, this year’s program intensifies focus on high-impact vulnerabilities in cloud computing and artificial intelligence ecosystems.

The Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) emphasizes that this represents the largest public hacking event in history, designed to foster collaboration between elite researchers and Microsoft’s engineering teams to preemptively fortify defenses against evolving cyber threats.

The initiative underscores Microsoft’s proactive stance in vulnerability management, recognizing that the dynamic threat landscape demands continuous innovation and collective effort.

By incentivizing ethical hacking, the program aims to identify and mitigate zero-day exploits, previously unknown vulnerabilities that could be weaponized by ...