TierOne Forum Announces $10,000 Exploit-Writing Contest
Summary
The TierOne dark web forum announced an exploit-writing contest running April 13–May 14, 2026, with $10,000 in prizes. Topics include RCE, IDOR, firmware attacks and AV/EDR bypasses; the ransomware group cry0 reportedly sponsors it.
Key points
- The contest is scheduled to run April 13–May 14, 2026, with prizes of $5,000, $3,000 and $2,000 for the top three submissions.
- Requested topics include RCE, IDOR, SSTI, insecure deserialization, firmware attacks, privilege escalation and AV/EDR bypasses.
- Submissions must be original, posted in the forum’s Articles section with a “[Contest]” prefix, and meet a minimum one-page length.
- The article reports that ransomware group cry0 sponsors the contest.
- The contest illustrates technical knowledge-sharing in an underground forum, while the article notes ethical and legal concerns.
Article Details
- Event Type
- TierOne announced a dark web article contest with a $10,000 prize pool for technical submissions on vulnerability exploitation. The contest is reportedly sponsored by the ransomware group cry0.
- Impact
- The contest incentivizes creating and sharing technical exploit knowledge in an illicit forum, covering topics including RCE, IDOR, SSTI, firmware attacks, and AV/EDR bypasses. The article notes potential ethical and legal concerns but reports no specific victim or resulting compromise.
Threat Actors
Products
BlinkZero-day discovery in browser components like WebGPU and Blink.MikroTik RouterOSPrivilege escalation techniques in RouterOS and similar systems.Node.jsRemote Code Execution (RCE) through deserialization flaws in React and Node.js frameworks.ReactRemote Code Execution (RCE) through deserialization flaws in React and Node.js frameworks.WebGPUZero-day discovery in browser components like WebGPU and Blink.