Google has announced rewards for exploiting Chrome in Pwn2Own contest this year. The winners will get rewards worth USD 1 million and chromebooks for hacking and discovering bugs in Chrome, WebKit, sandbox and other related stuff.

Chrome team already runs a bug bounty program for Chrome and ChromeOS, and has awarded over $300,000 in last two years. This reward for Pwn2Own contest is an extension of Chrome’s reward program and will help Chrome developers understand vulnerabilities better. Google has decided to award another $20k to the hackers for discovering vulnerabilities in Flash, Windows or drivers. These bugs may be specific to any other browser, and not just Chrome.

Pwn2Own hacking contest is a part of annual CanSecWest security conference, which will start on 7th March 2012. This year, the organizers of Pwn2Own have allowed contestants to participate in the event without having to reveal the exploits. Due to this policy change, Google is not sponsoring the event this year. Therefore, a separate reward program, Pwnium, has been announced by Google to encourage the hackers. Pwnium will held in parallel with the Pwn2Own contest.