The Day Microsoft Got Hacked: A Bug Bounty Hunter's Exploit Chain

TLDROn May 18th, 2022, a Bug Bounty Hunter hacked Microsoft, specifically its social networking platform Microsoft Teams. The severity of the bug was critical, allowing attackers to execute remote code and gain access to the underlying operating system without any user interaction. Microsoft paid out a $150,000 bounty for this exploit, making it one of the highest publicly reported payouts. This video covers the exploit chain used by the Bug Hunter and the technology behind Microsoft Teams.

Key insights

💣The Bug Bounty Hunter discovered a critical bug in Microsoft Teams that allowed remote code execution without user interaction.

💰Microsoft paid out a $150,000 bounty for this exploit, making it one of the highest publicly reported payouts.

🔒The exploit chain took advantage of vulnerabilities in Electron, the underlying technology behind Microsoft Teams desktop application.

🌐Cross-site scripting and prototype pollution were used to escape the renderer process and gain access to powerful Node.js APIs.

⚙️The Bug Hunter leveraged IPC communication between the renderer process and the main process to achieve remote code execution.

Q&A

What is a bug bounty program?

—A bug bounty program is a way for companies to incentivize ethical hackers to find and report vulnerabilities in their software.

What is remote code execution?

—Remote code execution is the ability for an attacker to execute code on a target system remotely, without direct interaction from the user.

What is Electron?

—Electron is an open-source framework developed by GitHub for building desktop applications using web technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

How does cross-site scripting work?

—Cross-site scripting is a type of attack where attackers inject malicious code into trusted websites, allowing them to run arbitrary code in a victim's browser.

What is prototype pollution?

—Prototype pollution is a vulnerability that allows an attacker to modify the prototype of an object, leading to unintended behavior and potential security risks.

Timestamped Summary

00:00On May 18th, 2022, a Bug Bounty Hunter hacked Microsoft Teams, the social networking platform of Microsoft.

03:13The severity of the bug was critical, allowing attackers to execute remote code without user interaction.

08:56Microsoft paid out a $150,000 bounty for this exploit, making it one of the highest publicly reported payouts.

12:20The exploit chain took advantage of vulnerabilities in Electron, the underlying technology behind Microsoft Teams desktop application.

21:40Cross-site scripting and prototype pollution were used to escape the renderer process and gain access to powerful Node.js APIs.

28:15The Bug Hunter leveraged IPC communication between the renderer process and the main process to achieve remote code execution.

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