Facebook today confirmed it's awarding $200,000 to the top three winners of the Internet Defense Prize, one week after it paid $800,000 at Black Hat for Secure the Internet grants.

The Internet Defense Prize started in 2014 as part of a partnership with USENIX. Its goal is to recognize research intended to improve Internet security, and it awards $100,000 to the author(s) of the winning paper, $60,000 for second place, and $40,000 for third place.

This year's winners, from KU Leuven, submitted a paper entitled "Who Left Open the Cookie Jar? A Comprehensive Evaluation of Third-Party Cookie Policies," which focused on improving the ways that browsers prevent cross-site attacks and third-party tracking using cookies.

Second prize went to a group from Brigham Young University that created a prototype simulation to make it easier for app developers to use cryptography. Third place went to a team from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Sangfor Technologies, which took a closer look at the implementation of single sign-on code.

Read more details here.

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