Microsoft Launches Zero-Day Quest Hacking Contest with Rewards Up to $5 Million

Microsoft has unveiled the return of its groundbreaking Zero Day Quest initiative, escalating the stakes in cybersecurity research with a staggering total bounty pool of up to $5 million.

Building on the success of last year’s inaugural event, which offered $4 million in awards and garnered overwhelming participation from the global security community, this year’s program intensifies focus on high-impact vulnerabilities in cloud computing and artificial intelligence ecosystems.

The Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) emphasizes that this represents the largest public hacking event in history, designed to foster collaboration between elite researchers and Microsoft’s engineering teams to preemptively fortify defenses against evolving cyber threats.

The initiative underscores Microsoft’s proactive stance in vulnerability management, recognizing that the dynamic threat landscape demands continuous innovation and collective effort.

By incentivizing ethical hacking, the program aims to identify and mitigate zero-day exploits, previously unknown vulnerabilities that could be weaponized by adversaries before they compromise customer data or infrastructure.

Last year’s Zero Day Quest not only highlighted critical security gaps but also resulted in substantial awards, with $1.6 million distributed for groundbreaking research in areas like Copilot AI and cloud services, demonstrating tangible improvements in product resilience.

Pathways to Participation

Participation begins immediately with the Zero Day Quest Research Challenge, a two-month window from August 4 to October 4, 2025, open to all security researchers worldwide.

During this phase, submissions targeting specific high-priority domains such as Microsoft Azure’s cloud infrastructure, Copilot’s AI-driven functionalities, Dynamics 365 and Power Platform’s enterprise solutions, Identity services for authentication protocols, and M365’s productivity suite qualify for amplified bounty payouts.

To encourage the discovery of severe issues, Microsoft is implementing a +50% multiplier on rewards for vulnerabilities classified as Critical severity or those aligning with designated high-impact scenarios.

This multiplier applies selectively, with the higher value prevailing if a submission meets multiple criteria, potentially pushing individual bounties into six-figure territory for exploits involving remote code execution, privilege escalation, or AI model manipulation.

Qualifying researchers may earn invitations to the exclusive, invite-only Live Hacking Event scheduled for Spring 2026 at Microsoft’s Redmond headquarters.

This on-site gathering will unite top-tier experts in a collaborative environment, allowing direct interaction with MSRC personnel and product developers to dissect complex vulnerabilities in real time.

The event transcends mere competition, serving as a knowledge-sharing forum where participants can exchange insights on advanced attack vectors, such as those exploiting container orchestration in Azure Kubernetes Service or prompt injection in Copilot’s natural language processing pipelines.

Microsoft’s bounty programs, which underpin the contest, adhere to rigorous guidelines ensuring responsible disclosure, with rewards scaled based on exploit severity, reproducibility, and potential business impact factors evaluated using metrics like the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) and internal risk assessments.

Secure Future in Cloud

By expanding the bounty ceiling to $5 million, Microsoft is not only rewarding ingenuity but also signaling a deeper investment in securing emerging technologies.

The program addresses pressing challenges in AI security, such as adversarial attacks that could undermine machine learning models, and cloud vulnerabilities like misconfigurations in identity and access management (IAM) systems that might lead to data breaches.

Researchers are encouraged to explore scenarios involving hypervisor escapes in virtualized environments or side-channel attacks on AI inference engines, with bounties reflecting the technical depth required for such discoveries.

This initiative aligns with broader industry trends toward bug bounty proliferation, where companies like Microsoft leverage crowdsourced expertise to outpace malicious actors.

As cyber threats grow more sophisticated, encompassing nation-state operations and ransomware campaigns, the Zero Day Quest positions Microsoft at the forefront of defensive innovation.

Researchers interested in contributing can submit findings through established MSRC channels, with the promise of not just financial incentives but also recognition in advancing global cybersecurity standards.

With the event’s track record of driving meaningful enhancements, this year’s iteration is poised to further elevate the security posture of cloud and AI technologies, benefiting enterprises and end-users alike.

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