Microsoft offers $250,000 anti-hacking prize
Microsoft has kicked off a contest aimed at turning the tables on hackers by offering big money prizes for innovative tactics to foil cyber attacks. The US software titan launched the premier BlueHat Prize competition at a major Black Hat computer security conference in Las Vegas.
"As the risk of criminal attacks on private and government computer systems continues to increase, Microsoft recognises the need to stimulate research in the area of defensive computer security technology," Microsoft Trustworthy Computer Group general manager, Matt Thomlinson, said.
"Our interest is to promote a focus on developing innovative solutions rather than discovering individual issues," he continued. Microsoft opted to offer prizes for defending against entire types of cyber attacks instead of simple paying "bounties" to those that discover individual computer bugs.
