Security pros corralled the best and worst of cybersecurity into an award show highlighting exploits, bugs, achievements, and attacks from the past year.

Kelly Sheridan, Former Senior Editor, Dark Reading

August 3, 2017

14 Slides

Each year, security experts gather to celebrate the achievements and failures of security researchers and the broader infosec community during the Pwnie awards. This year's ceremony once again took place during the Black Hat USA conference in Las Vegas.

The show's committee accepted nominations for bugs disclosed over the past year, from June 2, 2016 through May 31, 2017. Nominees are judged by a panel of respected security researchers, which according to its website is "the closest to a jury of peers a likely to ever get."

Winners were announced the week of Black Hat during an informal (and hilarious) ceremony hosted by judges and infosec pros Travis Goodspeed, Charlie Miller, Brandon Edwards, Katie Moussouris, and Dino Dai Zovi.

Winners in attendance were honored with "Pwnie" statues; some recipients, like Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and the Shadow Brokers, were obviously absent.

The 2017 show included award categories ranging from Best Cryptographic Attack to Best Server-Side Bug to Lamest Vendor Response. Who were this year's winners? Take a look to find out.

Read more about:

Black Hat News

About the Author(s)

Kelly Sheridan

Former Senior Editor, Dark Reading

Kelly Sheridan was formerly a Staff Editor at Dark Reading, where she focused on cybersecurity news and analysis. She is a business technology journalist who previously reported for InformationWeek, where she covered Microsoft, and Insurance & Technology, where she covered financial services. Sheridan earned her BA in English at Villanova University. You can follow her on Twitter @kellymsheridan.

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