Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Edge browsers were lost at the Pwn2Own 2019 hack contest

At the 2019 Pwn2Own hack contest in Vancouver, Canada, security experts successfully hacked both Firefox and Microsoft Edge browsers.

This is the first time Firefox has been compromised by exploiting a JIT Bug error and a record in the Windows kernel. After redirecting Firefox access to a phishing site, this technique allows running code at the system level and taking up the entire machine. With this achievement, two security houses, Amat Cama and Richard Zhu of Fluoroacetate team, received 50 thousand USD.

Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Edge browsers were lost at the Pwn2Own 2019 hack contest Picture 1

Another expert named Niklas Baumstark also successfully hacked the Firefox browser with sandbox device exploitation, bug JIT bugs and logic errors. With this technique, Baumstark captured the control and control of the computer as an administrator. With this performance Baumstark also received a reward of 40,000 USD.

In addition, the Fluoroacetate team also held a more complex attack, using VMWare Workstation virtual machine to exploit the Microsoft Edge vulnerability. Security experts have implemented code snippets on virtual machine monitoring software (hypervisor) and hacked into Windows worms to expose vulnerabilities within the browser. After successfully hacking Microsoft Edge, they also received a prize of $ 130,000.

Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Edge browsers were lost at the Pwn2Own 2019 hack contest Picture 2
Fluoroacetate team security experts are hacking Microsoft Edge.

Microsoft Edge was also successfully hacked by another expert named Arthur Gerkis of Exodus Intelligence team based on logic errors, helping him to surpass the sandbox device. This impressive performance of the guy received $ 50,000 in bonuses.

These vulnerabilities will be sent to Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Edge to Mozilla and Microsoft to patch in future updates.

At the Vancouver 2019 Pwn2Own contest, security experts showed 8 successful vulnerability and hack exploits for Microsoft Edge, Safari, Firefox, VMware Workstation and Virtualbox. They received a total prize value of up to 510 thousand USD.