Hackers earn $1,262,000 for 98 zero-days at Pwn2Own Ireland
Ikotas Labs won the contest, while payouts climbed across all three days as teams found more flaws.
Pwn2Own Ireland 2026 ended with hackers earning $1,262,000 for demonstrating 98 zero-day flaws across the contest. Ikotas Labs led the event with 42.5 Master of Pwn points and $361,000, including work against the Samsung Galaxy S26, OpenAI Codex, the Oracle Autonomous AI Database, and a $300,000 win for a chained attack on the Google Pixel 10. Xint finished second with $240,000 and 27.5 points, and Team ZyGoat placed third with $125,000 and 27.5 points. Across the three days, competitors also split $388,500 on day one for 32 zero-days, $232,500 on day two for 45 more, and $641,000 on the final day for 21 zero-days.
Why it matters
The event shows how much value top exploit work can still command in public contests, with a single team taking the top prize and others splitting substantial payouts across multiple days. For vendors and product owners named in the summary, it also marks a public demonstration of weaknesses that had to be paid out as zero-days, not quietly disclosed later.
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Sources
- BleepingComputer