Recently, The Pwnie Awards, known as the "Global White Hat Hacker Oscars", were announced. The research result "One Word Settles the World: Systematic Exploration and Exploitation of DNS Silencing Vulnerabilities in Domain Name Resolution" by the Tsinghua Internet Research Institute team won the "Most Innovative Research Award" in The Pwnie Awards 2026. The research was completed by Tsinghua University (Network Research Institute)-Qihoo (360) Cyberspace Surveying and Mapping Joint Research Center.
Award-winning results
The Pwnie Awards, founded in 2007, is one of the most influential professional awards in the field of international network security. It aims to recognize the world's most groundbreaking and influential security research results. Previous winners are mostly from the world's top security research institutions and security teams, so they are known as the "Oscars" of the global white hat hacker community.
This award is also an important result of the long-term cutting-edge research cooperation on cyberspace security between 360 and Tsinghua University Network Research Institute. In fact, the relationship between 360 and Pwnie Awards has lasted for many years.
In 2019, 360 won the "Best Privilege Escalation Vulnerability Award" at The Pwnie Awards for its important discoveries in the field of vulnerability research. It became the first Chinese team to win the award in the 12 years since the award was established, achieving a historic breakthrough for China's security research strength on this top international stage. In 2020, Gong Guang, chief security researcher of 360, once again won the Pwnie Awards "Epic Achievement" award, breaking the record of no countryman winning this award for 14 consecutive years. So far, 360 has won the "Hacker Oscar" award for the third time.
Behind the award is the capability base formed by 360’s long-term investment in the security field. For more than two decades, 360 has continued to delve into key areas such as vulnerability research, offensive and defensive confrontation, and cyberspace mapping. It has independently discovered more than 3,000 mainstream software vulnerabilities, and has repeatedly won vulnerability rewards from international technology companies such as Microsoft, Apple, and Google. At the same time, he has been active in the field of practical vulnerability research for a long time, and continues to tackle high-value vulnerability mining technology.
Entering the AI era, 360 launched the AI security attack and defense system "Tulongfeng" and the automated defense system "Yitian Zhen" based on years of accumulated security data, attack and defense experience and tool systems, deeply integrating large security models with professional intelligent agent swarms to achieve intelligent collaboration in vulnerability discovery, analysis and verification, and risk research and judgment.
It is understood that up to now, 360 Tulongfeng has discovered more than 10,000 vulnerabilities, 260 of which have been verified and confirmed by authoritative organizations such as the National Information Security Vulnerability Database, including a number of serious and high-risk vulnerabilities in mainstream commercial and open source AI products such as OpenAI Codex, Claude Code, Hermes, and OpenClaw. Relevant capabilities have served many key industries such as finance, energy, operators, government affairs, and high-end manufacturing.
From traditional network security to the AI era, 360 continues to discover high-value vulnerabilities in mainstream AI platforms around the world. What changes is the form of technology, but what remains unchanged is the continued exploration of unknown risks. Facing the new security challenges brought by artificial intelligence, 360 will continue to promote security research innovation and protect the digital world with more advanced security capabilities.
