A three-man security team needed just two minutes to hack a MacBook Air -- and took home $10,000 for doing so.The trio -- Charlie Miller, Jake Honoroff and Mark Daniel of Independent Security Evaluators -- played upon a newly discovered vulnerability in the Safari Web browser (v3.1) during the Pwn to Own hacking contest at this week's CanSecWest security conference in Vancouver. The vulnerability will not be made public (the winners signed a nondisclore agreement), though it reportedly might be related to issues recently discovered in Safari's Windows version. Apple, which had just started to ship Safari with an iTunes update to some Windows users, has been made aware of the issue.
The contest, sponsored by TippingPoint, pit three computers against each other: said MacBook Air, a Sony Vaio and the Fujitsu U810. As of press time, the latter two machines had not been compromised.The Tech Herald
Keep up with the latest cybersecurity threats, newly-discovered vulnerabilities, data breach information, and emerging trends. Delivered daily or weekly right to your email inbox.
Subscribe