Microsoft is providing as much as $5 million to safety researchers taking part on the Zero Day Quest hacking competitors, set to happen in spring 2026.
Zero Day Quest 2026 would be the second installment of the reside hacking competitors, after the tech big paid out $1.6 million for vulnerability analysis as a part of this yr’s occasion.
Between August 4 and October 4, 2025, Microsoft is accepting submissions for vulnerabilities in Microsoft Azure, Copilot, Dynamics 365 and Energy Platform, Identification, and M365, as a part of the Zero Day Quest Analysis Problem.
Vital-severity vulnerabilities and high-impact situations uncovered in the course of the problem are eligible for a +50% bounty multiplier, the tech big introduced.
Taking part researchers may have the possibility to qualify for the invite-only reside hacking occasion, which will probably be held at Microsoft’s Redmond campus in spring 2026.
“This occasion will convey collectively the world’s main safety researchers — those that have demonstrated distinctive impression via their analysis — to collaborate immediately with Microsoft product groups and the Microsoft Safety Response Heart (MSRC),” the corporate says.
Microsoft can also be providing coaching periods from the AI Pink Crew, MSRC, and Dynamics groups to all Zero Day Quest members, and encourages them to share particulars on their findings publicly as soon as the recognized points have been patched.
“As a part of our Safe Future Initiative (SFI), we are going to transparently share crucial vulnerabilities via the CVE program, even when no buyer motion is required. Learnings from the Zero Day Quest will probably be shared throughout Microsoft to assist enhance Cloud and AI safety in alignment with SFI’s core rules: securing by default, by design, and in operations,” the corporate notes.Commercial. Scroll to proceed studying.
The Zero Day Quest contest is topic to the phrases of Microsoft’s bug bounty program, and extra phrases and situations for each the problem and the unique occasion. Directions on how you can submit studies might be discovered on the MSRC Researcher Portal.
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