Zerodium just awarded hackers a million bucks for breaking into iOS 9

Zerodium is an interesting company. It makes its money by purchasing exploits and security information regarding popular software, and then selling them to the highest bidder, whether that bidder be the developer behind the software or a malicious hacking group. The company made the news a few weeks ago when it announced a $1 million bounty for anyone who could break into iOS 9, and now it looks like it has its winner. The identity of the hackers is unknown, but we do know that they were one of two separate groups that were competing for the bounty, and are now $1 million richer. 

Hacking Apple’s iOS isn’t easy. But in the world of cybersecurity, even the hardest target isn’t impossible—only expensive. And the price of a working attack that can compromise the latest iPhone is apparently somewhere around $1 million. On Monday, the security startup Zerodium announced that it’s agreed to pay out that seven-figure sum to a team of hackers who have successfully developed a technique that can hack any iPhone or iPad that can be tricked into visiting a carefully crafted web site. Zerodium describes that technique as a “jailbreak”—a term used by iPhone owners to hack their own phones to install unauthorized apps. But make no mistake: Zerodium and its founder Chaouki Bekrar have made clear that its customers include governments who no doubt use such “zero-day” hacking techniques on unwitting surveillance targets. In fact, Bekrar tells WIRED that two teams of hackers had attempted to claim the bounty, which was announced in September with an October 31st deadline. Only one proved to have developed a complete, working iOS attack. “Two teams have been actively working on the challenge but only one has made a full and remote jailbreak,” Bekrar writes. “The other team made a partial jailbreak and they may qualify for a partial bounty (unconfirmed at this time).”