Victorinox is so convinced that its latest biometric-secured flash drive – included as part of its top-end range of penknives – is secure, it's offering £100,000 to any enterprising hacker or cracker who can break into it.
As reported over on The Register, the company is holding the competition at its New Bond Street store in London on Thursday the 25th and Friday the 26th of March.
The competition is looking to drum up interest in the company's latest Swiss Army knives, which feature an in-built USB flash drive with integral fingerprint scanner. If you don't swipe the right print, the device not only refuses to mount the drive but also e-mails its owner – and if no response is received within a certain time period, it automatically deletes the contents of the drive.
Those wishing to participate are encouraged to fill in the competition application form. While not all that do will be selected to participate, those lucky few – the competition is limited to 24 entrants - who are will find themselves in for a treat: as well as a two-hour window to attempt to break the biometric-based security system on the drive in order to get their hands on the £100,000 top price, participants will get a Cybertool Lite penknife whether they are successful or not.
A successful crack is defined by Victorinox as reading a file stored in the secure partition “in plaintext” without using the original password or fingerprint, and recording the attempt in such a way that Victorinox would be able to repeat the feat – and, more importantly, fix the flaw and improve the security of the device.
Any budding hackers fancy their chances at the £100,000 top prize, or are you tempted to enter simply to get your hands on the free penknife? Share your thoughts over in the forums.
As reported over on The Register, the company is holding the competition at its New Bond Street store in London on Thursday the 25th and Friday the 26th of March.
The competition is looking to drum up interest in the company's latest Swiss Army knives, which feature an in-built USB flash drive with integral fingerprint scanner. If you don't swipe the right print, the device not only refuses to mount the drive but also e-mails its owner – and if no response is received within a certain time period, it automatically deletes the contents of the drive.
Those wishing to participate are encouraged to fill in the competition application form. While not all that do will be selected to participate, those lucky few – the competition is limited to 24 entrants - who are will find themselves in for a treat: as well as a two-hour window to attempt to break the biometric-based security system on the drive in order to get their hands on the £100,000 top price, participants will get a Cybertool Lite penknife whether they are successful or not.
A successful crack is defined by Victorinox as reading a file stored in the secure partition “in plaintext” without using the original password or fingerprint, and recording the attempt in such a way that Victorinox would be able to repeat the feat – and, more importantly, fix the flaw and improve the security of the device.
Any budding hackers fancy their chances at the £100,000 top prize, or are you tempted to enter simply to get your hands on the free penknife? Share your thoughts over in the forums.
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