ComputerWorld reported that Microsoft was hoping to find technology it could build into its Windows operating system. The company plans to fly the top three winners to the Black Hat cybersecurity conference in July.

The Blue Hat Prize is not a bug bounty system where companies pay hackers to find weaknesses in software. Instead, Microsoft was looking for innovations that could protect Windows from whole classes of bugs. Submitters keep their intellectual property rights but must license it for free to Microsoft.

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