DAY One of Pwn2Own Ireland 2026 saw 21 competing entries across multiple categories, with a mix of failures and notable successes. The event began with Ikotas Labs, Inc. unable to complete an exploit of the Brother MFC-L8970CDW within the allotted time, leaving that entry marked as a failure. By contrast, there were solid wins from other researchers, including a high‑value exploit of a consumer device.
McCaulay Hudson, presenting under the handle @McCaulay, achieved a successful chain combining an out‑of‑bounds (OOB) write and a format string bug to compromise the Sonos Era 300. He was awarded $50,000 and 5 Master of Pwn points for the achievement. In another notable result, Taisic Yun of Xint used a combination of Improper Input Validation and code injection to obtain a reverse shell on LiteLLM, earning $40,000 and 4 Master of Pwn points.
These outcomes illustrate the range of targets in Day One, from networked speakers to language model devices, and highlight the types of vulnerabilities researchers are leveraging, including memory safety issues and input handling flaws.
The article emphasises live, day‑by‑day coverage and the ongoing competition, but only those results explicitly stated are included here. As the event unfolds, further detailed outcomes across other devices (including Samsung targets) are expected, alongside additional proofs of concept and prize allocations.