MacBook Air First To Be Compromised In Hacking Contest

Multiple readers have written to let us know that the MacBook Air was the first laptop to fall in the CanSecWest hacking contest. The successful hijacking took place only two minutes into the second day of the competition, after the rules had been relaxed to allow the visiting of websites and opening of emails. The TippingPoint blog reveals that the vulnerability was located within Safari, but they won't release specific details until Apple has had a chance to correct the problem. The winner, Charlie Miller, gets to keep the laptop and $10,000. We covered the contest last year, and the results were similar.

Comments

0wnership

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, the pride of 0wnership.

do you hear that ?

[Anonymous Coward]

the sound of a million fanbois as they screamed Nooooooooooooo i sense i disturbance in the reality distortion generator set comments to flamebait and activate the extra moderation modules captain taco

Re:do you hear that ?

[Lovat]

You are correct, sir. Flaimbait tags on both the story and half the comments here in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .

Better headline

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Safari browser has massive security hole.

It's funny how they turned a huge hole in the Safari browser into a commercial for the Mac Air.

"Small size, big holes"

Re:Better headline

[ilikejam]

There's a 'yo mama' joke in there somewhere.

Keep the laptop

[iliketrash]

"The winner, Charlie Miller, gets to keep the laptop and $10,000."

You mean like when your airplane flight is cancelled and the airline offers you a free ticket. Or when the food at a restaurant is crappy and they give you a coupon to eat there again.

Re:Identical articles

[Anonymous Coward]

The Vista machine would have been hacked quicker if it ran faster

Re:Get the Facts is a better tag.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. The totally unbiased facts from a guy with "Mac" in his username.

Re:And in other news.....

[linumax]

"We Love Microsoft and Hate All Things Apple." O_O Are we on the same slashdot? We all are on the same website; some posters though, are inside the Reality Distortion Field.

Re:Get the Facts is a better tag.

[exley]

The contest was also sponsored by the likes of Google, Cisco, Adobe, some security folk... They must all have it in for Apple, oh no Apple is screwed! Plus if you read how the contest was run, it's hard to make the case that this was all pro-MS.

Get the facts... Up to the point where they support your agenda and then punt.

Re:It Might Have Been Harder if...

[moderatorrater]

You're right. With a stricter firewall, the browser wouldn't have been able to fetch anything over the internet at all.

Re:Inquiring minds...

[moderatorrater]

Does "first to be compromised" mean the only one to be compromised? At this time, it was the only one hacked. The contest continue tomorrow.

Is the contest completely over once one machine is cracked? It continues tomorrow with more 3rd party apps installed that can be used to break into the system. I don't see much chance of the other two making it through tomorrow, but that depends on the programs they install.

If not, were Windows and Ubuntu cracked minutes or hours after OS X? They're both still un-cracked.

Does using Firefox on OS X make it uncrackable? If you plug one hole in a sieve, will it hold water?

Was each OS required to use it's own browser: IE, Safari, and Epiphany? They had to use the software that comes pre-installed on the machine.

Since Firefox works on all 3 systems, wouldn't that be a better gauge of OS security? Only if Firefox came preinstalled on all 3 systems.

Where did I come from? Your mother's vagina. Hopefully you've never been back.

Why is the sky blue? Do I look like Einstein?