Microsoft awards $374,300 in bug bounties to secure Azure Sphere

New Delhi, Oct 7 : Microsoft has awarded $374,300 in bug bounties to security researchers who spotted bugs in Azure Sphere which itself offers high-end security for Cloud-connected Internet of Things (IoT) devices.
During the three-month Azure Sphere Security Research Challenge (ASSRC), cyber security researchers surfaced 20 critical or important severity security vulnerabilities in Azure Sphere.
The Azure Sphere Security Research Challenge brought together 70 researchers from 21 countries to help secure Azure Sphere customers and expand Microsoft’s partnerships with the global IoT security research community.
“Many of the vulnerabilities found during the research challenge were novel and high impact, and led to major security improvements for Azure Sphere in their 20.07, 20.08 and the latest 20.09 updates,” Microsoft said in a statement on Tuesday.
The updates were automatically pushed to Azure Sphere devices that are connected to the internet to help secure Azure Sphere customers.
Security researchers from McAfee ATR and Cisco Talos reported high-impact bugs in Azure Sphere, “especially a full attack chain developed by McAfee ATR that exposed a weakness in the cloud and multiple weaknesses on the device including a previously unknown Linux kernel vulnerability”.