In a bid to demonstrate the robust nature of its security measures, cloud storage company
pCloud AG (pCloud) offered hackers $100,000 (or the equivalent value in Bitcoin) to penetrate its own security. The challenge required hackers hack and publish an encryption key on the ‘Crypto Challenge’ page on its website. The challenge is now over and pCloud published the key itself.
Only established in 2013, pCloud, which has headquarters in Zug, Switzerland, bills itself as a “security-led cloud storage service”. It offers services that enable users to share files easily and securely. It has grown very quickly and caters to around 4 million customers globally. Its suite of services include pCloud Drive, pCloud Crypto, and pCloud Business, each available through mobile devices, PCs and the Internet. Its storage packages offers 20 GB of storage for free and go up to 1 TB of storage available at only $7.99 per month. Its biggest package offers 5 TB of storage.
What pCloud calls its “Crypto Hacking Challenge” began in in September 2015. To date 2,860 have tried to penetrate its security. The bulk of the hackers involved (18%) were in the United States while 14% were located in India and 9% in the United Kingdom. Other hackers were from Portugal and Italy. Fortunately for the company, none of those invited to hack its services were able to penetrate its systems.
"The conclusion is clear: our Crypto security system is unbreakable,” explained pCloud’s CEO, Tunio Zafer.” We've proven that pCloud delivers the most secure cloud storage service on the market so far. "We started the challenge to prove to our existing and future clients that with pCloud their files are as safe as they can be. The best way to prove it was to test our service by challenging hackers from all over the world to break into our Crypto Folder and the result in the pCloud Crypto vs. hackers game is 2:0."
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