# Pwn2Own Berlin 2026: 47 Zero-Days Demonstrated Against VMware ESXi, Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange, Windows 11, Red Hat Linux, OpenAI Codex and Claude Code

> Pwn2Own Berlin 2026 (OffensiveCon, May 14-16) awarded $1,298,250 for 47 unique zero-day vulnerabilities, including live exploits against VMware ESXi, Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange, Windows 11, Red Hat Enterprise Linux and AI coding tools. DEVCORE won Master of Pwn with 50.5 points and $505,000. These are contest demonstrations under 90-day coordinated disclosure, not in-the-wild exploitation.

- **Published:** 2026-10-31T22:28:40Z
- **Last reviewed:** 2026-10-31T22:28:40Z
- **Canonical:** https://intel.threadlinqs.com/threat/TL-2026-4934
- **ID:** TL-2026-4934
- **Severity:** HIGH
- **Category:** VULNERABILITY
- **Status:** MONITORING
- **Detections:** 9 · **IOCs:** 17 (full data via the Threadlinqs MCP server — Purple tier)

## Description

Pwn2Own Berlin 2026, run by Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) at OffensiveCon, paid $1,298,250 for 47 unique zero-day vulnerabilities over three days (May 14-16, 2026), about 20% above the prior year's $1,078,750. Day one paid $523,000 for 24 zero-days, day two $385,750 for 15 and day three $389,500 for 8. Targets spanned web browsers, enterprise servers, operating systems, virtualization, container tooling and a large AI/LLM category.

Day three (the subject of the ZDI post that triggered this record) had ten attempts. Nguyen Hoang Thach (STARLabs SG) used a memory corruption bug against VMware ESXi, reported with cross-tenant code execution capability, for $200,000 and 20 Master of Pwn points. splitline (DEVCORE) chained two bugs against Microsoft SharePoint for $100,000 and 10 points, after the SharePoint attempt failed on day two. Viettel Cyber Security (Le Tran Hai Tung, dungnm, hieuvd) exploited a Windows 11 integer overflow for $7,500. Hyunwoo Kim used a use-after-free plus uninitialized memory chain against Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Workstations for $5,000. Satoki Tsuji (Ikotas Labs) exploited OpenAI Codex through an External Control Abuse bug for $20,000. Sina Kheirkhah's Red Hat Linux entry was a partial collision ($7,000). Two Anthropic Claude Code entries (Compass Security, Byung Young Yi) were collisions with previously known bugs, paid $20,000 each. Giuseppe Cali's ESXi attempt failed.

Earlier days included Orange Tsai (DEVCORE) chaining four logic bugs for a Microsoft Edge sandbox escape ($175,000) and three bugs for SYSTEM-level RCE on Microsoft Exchange ($200,000); multiple Windows 11 local privilege escalations (improper access control, heap buffer overflow, use-after-free, integer overflow); a Red Hat race condition (chompie) and use-after-free (Ben Koo); an NVIDIA Container Toolkit bug ($50,000); SSRF plus code injection chains against LiteLLM and LM Studio; path traversal and CWE-470 bugs in NVIDIA Megatron Bridge; CWE-190/CWE-362 bugs in Chroma; a CWE-150 bug in OpenAI Codex; and two Cursor exploits.

Per ZDI rules, vendors receive 90 days to ship fixes before technical details are published. The sources name no CVE identifiers, CVSS scores, patch timelines or public PoC. Severity HIGH is an analyst judgment based on target prevalence and payouts. Defenders should expect vendor patches for ESXi, SharePoint, Exchange, Windows 11 and RHEL within the disclosure window and should prioritize them when released; until then, reduce exposure of management planes and SharePoint/Exchange, and apply least privilege to AI coding agents.

## MITRE ATT&CK

- T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application
- T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution
- T1059 Command and Scripting Interpreter
- T1611 Escape to Host

## Sources

- [Pwn2Own Berlin 2026: Day Three Results and Master of Pwn (ZDI)](https://www.thezdi.com/blog/2026/5/16/pwn2own-berlin-2026-day-three-results-and-master-of-pwn)
- [Pwn2Own Berlin 2026 - Day One Results (ZDI)](https://thezdi.com/blog/2026/5/13/pwn2own-berlin-2026-day-one-results)
- [Hackers earn $1,298,250 for 47 zero-days at Pwn2Own Berlin 2026 (BleepingComputer)](https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/hackers-earn-1-298-250-for-47-zero-days-at-pwn2own-berlin-2026/)
- [Pwn2Own Berlin 2026, Day Three: DEVCORE Crowned Master of Pwn, $1.298 Million Total (Security Affairs)](https://securityaffairs.com/192250/hacking/pwn2own-berlin-2026-day-three-devcore-crowned-master-of-pwn-1-298-million-total.html)
- [Pwn2Own Berlin 2026, Day Two: $385,750 more, Microsoft Exchange falls (Security Affairs)](https://securityaffairs.com/192209/security/pwn2own-berlin-2026-day-two-385750-more-microsoft-exchange-falls-and-the-running-total-crosses-900k.html)
- [Pwn2Own Berlin 2026 concludes with $1.29 million paid for 47 zero-days (CyberInsider)](https://cyberinsider.com/pwn2own-berlin-2026-concludes-with-1-29-million-paid-for-47-zero-days/)

## Full data

Detection queries (Splunk SPL / Microsoft KQL / Sigma) and IOC values require the Threadlinqs MCP server (Purple tier): https://intel.threadlinqs.com/mcp

Canonical: https://intel.threadlinqs.com/threat/TL-2026-4934