The Pwnie Awards is an annual awards ceremony celebrating the achievements (and failures) of security researchers and the security community. Nominations are judged by a panel of respected security researchers and former Pwnie Award recipients.

The awards ceremony is held at DEF CON in Las Vegas and nominees are announced at Summercon in Brooklyn, NY. The awards accept nominations for bugs disclosed from July 1 of the prior year to June 30 of the current year.

Award categories include: Epic Achievement, Most Epic Fail, Lamest Vendor Response, Remote Code Execution, Privilege Escalation, Most Under-Hyped Research, Most Innovative Research, Best Song, Best Cryptographic Attack, Mobile Bug, and Best Desktop Bug.

From: https://pwnies.com/about/