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A Cybersecurity Tournament That Changed the Conversation
The cybersecurity world witnessed one of the most aggressive hacking competitions ever recorded as the Pwn2Own Berlin 2026 officially concluded after three intense days of live exploitation attempts. What began as another edition of the famous offensive security contest quickly transformed into a showcase of how vulnerable modern enterprise software, virtualization systems, AI coding platforms, and operating systems still are, even when fully patched.
Hosted during OffensiveCon 2026, the competition ended with researchers discovering 47 unique zero-day vulnerabilities and earning a combined payout of more than $1.29 million. The event shattered previous records and highlighted how rapidly the cybersecurity landscape is evolving.
This year’s tournament was not just about browsers or operating systems anymore. Artificial intelligence platforms, developer tools, and enterprise collaboration software became prime targets. The message from Berlin was impossible to ignore: the attack surface of modern technology is expanding faster than vendors can secure it.
DEVCORE Dominates the Entire Competition
The biggest headline of the event belonged to DEVCORE, which completely dominated the scoreboard from beginning to end. By the final day, the team already held a massive lead with 40.5 Master of Pwn points and $405,000 in winnings.
Instead of slowing down, DEVCORE delivered another devastating performance during the final rounds. Their researcher splitline successfully chained together two separate vulnerabilities to compromise Microsoft Microsoft SharePoint. The exploit earned the team another $100,000 alongside 10 Master of Pwn points.
That victory carried symbolic weight because SharePoint had resisted earlier attacks during the competition. A previous attempt by Rapid7 researcher Stephen Fewer failed on day two, creating the impression that the platform might survive untouched. DEVCORE erased that narrative completely.
By the end of the contest, DEVCORE closed the event with 50.5 Master of Pwn points and an astonishing $505,000 in total rewards. Few teams in Pwn2Own history have demonstrated that level of consistency across multiple categories and targets.
VMware ESXi Suffers a Massive Breach
Another standout moment came from STARLabs SG researcher Nguusd Hoang Thach, also known online as hi_im_d4rkn3ss.
The researcher exploited a memory corruption vulnerability against VMware ESXi while using the Cross-tenant Code Execution add-on. The successful compromise earned a staggering $200,000 and 20 Master of Pwn points.
The attack once again proved that virtualization infrastructure remains one of the highest-value targets for modern offensive researchers. ESXi systems are heavily used inside enterprise data centers and cloud environments, meaning any successful exploit could potentially expose enormous amounts of infrastructure.
OpenAI’s Codex Faces Repeated Exploitation
Perhaps the most uncomfortable story for the AI industry involved OpenAI and its OpenAI Codex platform.
Codex was compromised not once, not twice, but three separate times during the competition by different researchers using entirely different techniques. That detail matters because it suggests the vulnerabilities are not isolated accidents. Instead, they may point toward deeper architectural weaknesses in AI-assisted development systems.
On the final day, researcher Satoki Tsuji from Ikotas Labs abused an external control vulnerability to achieve code execution on Codex. The exploit earned $20,000 and additional Master of Pwn points.
The repeated compromises place growing pressure on AI companies to rethink their security models. AI coding agents increasingly operate with elevated permissions, repository access, and workflow integration capabilities. If attackers can manipulate these systems, the consequences could extend beyond a single compromised machine into entire software supply chains.
Claude Code Also Enters the Crosshairs
Anthropic and its Claude Code platform also appeared on the target list.
Researchers from Compass Security attempted to compromise the system after previously attacking OpenAI Codex earlier in the event. Their effort resulted in what organizers call a “collision,” meaning part of the discovered vulnerability overlapped with previously submitted research.
Although the team did not receive a full payout, they still earned partial credit and confirmed that exploitable research existed. Even partial successes against AI development tools reinforce the same message repeated throughout Berlin: AI platforms are rapidly becoming major cybersecurity targets.
Windows 11 Continues to Get Cracked
One of the most alarming trends from the entire competition involved Windows 11.
Multiple independent teams successfully compromised fully patched Windows 11 systems using entirely different vulnerabilities. That pattern indicates attackers still have many available paths into Microsoft’s flagship operating system despite years of hardening improvements.
Researchers from Viettel Cyber Security exploited an integer overflow vulnerability to escalate privileges on Windows 11 during the fifth round of the event. The exploit added more points and prize money to their total.
By the conclusion of Pwn2Own Berlin 2026, Windows 11 had become one of the most targeted and most successfully exploited systems at the conference.
Linux Systems Were Not Safe Either
Enterprise Linux environments also experienced multiple successful attacks.
Researcher Sina Kheirkhah from Summoning Team used two vulnerabilities to compromise Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Workstations. One flaw had already been identified previously, resulting in partial credit rather than a full reward.
Meanwhile, researcher Hyunwoo Kim chained together a use-after-free vulnerability and an uninitialized memory bug to achieve a clean privilege escalation attack on the same platform.
The results demonstrated that Linux desktop and workstation environments remain attractive targets for high-level researchers despite their reputation for stability and security.
Record Prize Pool Signals a Changing Industry
Last year’s Berlin competition distributed just over $1.07 million in rewards. This year crossed $1.298 million, representing roughly a 20 percent increase.
The rising payouts reveal how valuable vulnerability research has become. Companies are now willing to spend massive amounts of money to identify critical security flaws before criminal groups or nation-state attackers discover them first.
The event also highlighted a major shift in target priorities. Traditional browsers and operating systems still matter, but AI systems, developer tools, collaboration software, and cloud infrastructure are now equally important.
That evolution mirrors the modern enterprise environment itself. Businesses increasingly depend on interconnected ecosystems where a single vulnerability inside an AI assistant or virtualization layer could impact thousands of downstream users.
What Undercode Say:
The AI Security Wake-Up Call Has Officially Arrived
Pwn2Own Berlin 2026 may eventually be remembered as the moment AI security stopped being theoretical and became a frontline industry concern.
Three separate successful attacks against OpenAI Codex are not a coincidence. When different researchers exploit the same platform using unrelated techniques, it usually indicates systemic exposure rather than isolated coding mistakes. That should concern every company racing to integrate AI agents into developer workflows.
AI coding assistants are especially dangerous because they operate close to sensitive infrastructure. They can access repositories, generate executable code, interact with APIs, and sometimes even deploy software automatically. A compromised AI agent is not merely a chatbot problem. It becomes a supply chain problem.
The repeated Windows 11 compromises also expose an uncomfortable truth. Fully patched systems are no longer enough to guarantee security against elite researchers. Modern attackers chain vulnerabilities together, combine logic flaws with memory corruption bugs, and increasingly target the edges between systems rather than isolated software components.
VMware ESXi being exploited for such a massive payout shows another important trend. Infrastructure attacks remain incredibly valuable because compromising virtualization layers can expose entire enterprise environments in one move. Attackers are always looking for the highest-leverage target possible.
Another fascinating detail from this year’s competition is how many exploits involved privilege escalation. That tells us attackers increasingly assume some level of initial access already exists. Modern cybersecurity is shifting away from pure perimeter defense toward containment and segmentation strategies.
The economics behind Pwn2Own are also becoming impossible to ignore. More than $1.29 million in payouts means vulnerability research is now a serious professional industry. Elite exploit developers can earn substantial income legally through competitions and coordinated disclosure programs instead of selling discoveries through underground markets.
However, the rapid growth of bug bounty economics creates another challenge. Smaller companies often cannot afford the same level of security testing as giant technology vendors. As attack research becomes more advanced, security gaps between large corporations and smaller firms could widen dramatically.
The competition also revealed how offensive security talent is becoming globally distributed. Teams from Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam, and multiple other regions competed at an elite level. Cybersecurity innovation is no longer concentrated in one geographic area.
Another critical observation is the growing complexity of modern attack chains. Researchers increasingly rely on multi-stage exploits involving several vulnerabilities working together. Defenders can no longer focus only on single bug prevention. They must understand how seemingly harmless weaknesses combine into catastrophic compromise paths.
The AI industry in particular should pay attention to the “external control vulnerability” category used against Codex. Many AI platforms integrate plugins, extensions, external APIs, and automation tools. Every integration point becomes a possible attack vector.
Pwn2Own also demonstrates why public competitions matter. Vendors receive vulnerability reports privately and get 90 days to patch systems before technical details become public. Without these disclosure programs, many flaws might instead circulate silently among criminal actors.
The next generation of cybersecurity battles will likely focus on AI infrastructure, autonomous systems, cloud orchestration platforms, and developer automation tools. Pwn2Own Berlin 2026 offered an early glimpse into that future.
Fact Checker Results
✅ Pwn2Own Berlin 2026 distributed more than $1.298 million in rewards and uncovered 47 unique zero-day vulnerabilities.
✅ OpenAI Codex was successfully exploited three separate times by different researchers using different attack methods.
❌ The competition did not prove any platform is “completely insecure,” but it clearly showed that even fully patched systems remain vulnerable to advanced exploitation techniques.
Prediction
🔮 AI coding assistants will become one of the biggest cybersecurity battlegrounds over the next three years.
🔮 Future Pwn2Own events will likely include even more AI-focused targets, cloud orchestration systems, and autonomous developer agents.
🔮 Companies that fail to invest heavily in offensive security testing for AI infrastructure may face serious real-world breaches sooner than expected.
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