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Safari/MacBook First To Fall At Pwn2Own 2011
recoiledsnake writes "A team of security researchers from the French pen-testing firm VUPEN successfully exploited a zero-day flaw in Apple's Safari browser to win this year's Pwn2Own hacker challenge. The hijacked machine was running a fully patched version of Mac OS X (64-bit). Bekrar's winning exploit did not even crash the browser after exploitation. Within five seconds of surfing to the rigged site, he successfully launched the calculator app and wrote a file on the disk without crashing the browser. Apple has just released Safari 5.0.4 and iOS 4.3 a few minutes before the Pwn2Own contest in an attempt to save face (a last minute patch for Chrome was also released) but failed."
It's called "Pwn2Own": the hackers win the machines they hack.
Everyone wants Macs. They hack them first. The other computers come down minutes later.
How does one pronounce 'pwn' in French?
Firefox and Linux are under represented in pwn2own as usual.
I'm not complacent, just saying it's nice.
I'm a Mac user and fortunately not a mindless one (honest, promise!). That Apple has been extremely lucky in not being overrun in exploited machines has more to do with the normal target area for exploiters being windows due to marketshare, but Macs have a big enough marketshare these days to make it worthwhile for crackers. I'm pretty sure that the time will come when Macs will be running dubious AV products like most Windows people do.
I believe Apple released 50+ patches a few minutes before the contest. No special treatment for Google that I'm aware of.
No one knows. Up until now the French have never had reason to use the word. You can't pwn someone and surrender at the same time.
From TFA:
He said the creation of a reliable exploit was “much more difficult” than finding the vulnerability.
“There are many WebKit vulnerabilities. You can run a fuzzer and get lots of good results. But it’s much more difficult to exploit it on x64 and to make your exploit very reliable,” he said.
If the vulnerabilities are so easy to find, why doesn't Apple just use a fuzzer itself and fix the vulnerabilities?
The groundwork they did will be most sought-after.
insecurity asks the wrong question irritation gives the wrong answer
We've had a few Macs (Macs that were administered by the person, not by IT) at work owned. In one case it was pure user stupidity, a world writable FTP. They couldn't see what was wrong though because "Macs can't get hacked!" In another case it was a virus that seemed to use the speech synthesizer to read ads. Was really funny.
It is rare, compared to Windows, but growing. The real problem is, as I mentioned, the "But Macs are safe!" people. They really do think that running a Mac absolves them from any security responsibility. I think there are going to be some nasty awakenings and users will have to accept that no matter what you do, you need to have good security practices. A virus scanner is a good idea as well, since it can help catch things if you slip up (and we all slip up).
Apple has just released Safari 5.0.4 and iOS 4.3 a few minutes before the Pwn2Own contest in an attempt to save face(Chrome and Safari also released last minute patches) but failed."
Safari is a browser and was allowed to be updated same with Firefox, so what special treatment are you reffering too? Also since Google up the reward for owning Chrome OS by $20,000 with their own money I would they might be deserving of some special treatment although that is not what happened here.
Given the financial incentives involved here (for example, the guy who gave up an almost certain $15,000 because he reported a bug to Google rather than keep it under wraps until he could clean up at Pwn2Own, how many bugs on all of the major platforms are kept "secret" to be used in contests like this?
I understand the nature of the event is to demonstrate the issues of security and code vulnerability, but sitting on exploits is surely counterproductive here?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pwn2own
Am I the only one who thinks that it's strange for a firm that tests pens to hire security experts and participate in this competition?
It is the universe that makes fun of us all.
The most interesting and disappointing thing about Pwn2Own for me was that all the recent development of sand-boxing in browsers suggested that they were going to herald in a new era of browser security.
In actual fact it turns out that, thanks sloppy implementations, they aren't very good at their job.
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So let me get this right. In a contest where you win $10,000, the thought of getting a $2,000 laptop for free is somehow of paramount concern. Never mind that most of the winners are certainly not broke and already have equal or better hardware.
They had a VAIO with Ubuntu on it in 2008, which nobody hacked. VAIOs are certainly not "cheapo".
which is totally what she said
Well that headline is misleading at best I'd say. I suggest reading pwn2own day one: Safari, IE8 fall, Chrome unchallenged in which it states that both Safari and IE fell at the first attempt, clearly it was a matter of nothing more than the ordering. Apologies for disturbing all the anti-apple ranting but both systems are weak.
Please feel free to resume posting uninformed comments now.
There is no other way of putting it. When you get served, you get served. and apple, has got served. much better for apple and its fans to take lessons from it, accepting the result, to better their stuff, than to try to spin and defend it.
Read radical news here
I feel a disturbance in the Force, as if a million Apple users suddenly cried out in terror, and were pwn3d.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
The organizers said that the software configuration was frozen a week ago. Nobody was allowed to do last-minute updates (like it was last year)
1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
Every year headlines claim platforms "pwned" in seconds but it's misleading and sensationalist.
The exploits are researched and practiced over days or weeks, rehearsed and simply repeated on the day. Yes it's bad, yes it demonstrates insecurity but the headlines imply that some guy just sits down at a fresh machine, sight unseen, decides to have a go at hacking it and within seconds it's done.
Of course the exploits take seconds to run - they are running them on computers - they are fast.
I'm sure they get faster every year.
Sitting on some damaging knowledge until you are paid to reveal it is plain extortion.
If I find a security hole in some software, I am under no obligation to tell anyone about it. But if a contest is set up (with the approval of the software companies) where I can use my knowledge to win a prize (and that knowledge is passed on the appropriate companies and NOT released to the public) then there is absolutely no problem.
It is only extortion if I contact the companies themselves and threaten to release the code to the world if I am not paid unless they pay me. But that is not what is happening here. Pwn2Own has been going on for years, and nobody has been arrested because of it.
Sadly it's Slashdot summary have a tendency to be sensationalist, misleading and sometimes even wrong. For comparison, consider Ars Technica's headline: "pwn2own day one: Safari, IE8 fall, Chrome unchallenged" — it's neutral and contains more information.
So what I take it that the exploit is in WebKit (along with many others). They did mention it was quite hard to build the root kit for x64.
So does this mean it is a cross platform exploit?
Any word on when apple will patch it?
It says the Macs were the first to fall. This is because they were the first part of the competition. It appears to imply that all OS were being hacked at the same time.
They also got $15K and the publicity for hacking OS X and safari....something a large population of people liked to think couldn't be done. I seriously doubt that anyone on VUPEN's team doesn't already have a macbook if they really want one. Or at least, access to one.
Cash prize ($35K for Chrome) that dwarfs the cost of the hardware = you being wrong
Put identity in the browser.
According to this link: Why Pwn2Own doesn't target linux (linked in another post), Pwn2Own only targets systems running MS Windows 7. If that is the case then this must have been Safari running on Win7, not OS/X.
I accept that OS/X likely has security holes - the same hole that permitted this exploit might work in the OS/X version of Safari as well after all - but I don't want to read endless MS Fanboi posts about how pathetic OS/X is, if the exploited system was running MS Windows 7
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
According to this more article, the version used by all browsers had been frozen from several weeks back so neither Safari nor IE were the latest.
TippingPoint's Peter Vreugdenhil said the browsers were "frozen" two weeks before today's tip-off with the then-current versions of Safari, Google's Chrome 9, Microsoft's IE8 and Mozilla's Firefox 3.6, to give researchers a stationary target.
While Apple did release a patch just minutes before the contest, it was not used and the release may not be related to the contest. The patch fixed some vulnerabilities but not the one that appeared to have been used. Also IE fell to the first attack. I'm not clear on the details of the contest but it appear that it is turn based.
Vupen, which was waiting in the wings in case Fewer failed, did not get a chance to try its luck against IE8.
It appears that Safari was selected or picked first to be tried.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
1) If you are a security researcher, do you want to win/pwn the MacBook Air or some random brand Winders notebook? To me, the Mac is the bigger/more fun target in an event like this.
2) From TFA: *He said the creation of a reliable exploit was “much more difficult” than finding the vulnerability.'*
Yes, Macs are not safe, but the crack was also not trivial. Something tells me they didn't come up with it on the spot.
3) From TFA: *Bekrar said VUPEN plans to hit Internet Explorer 8 on 64-bit Windows 7 (SP1) later in the contest.*
Well, we can see where they focused first.
4) 'Mac goes down first' is a much cooler headline than 'Sec. team puts all their effort into cracking Mac first, Will try Windows next'
Que Deus te de em dobro o que me desejas
[May God give you double that which you wish for me]
The exploited system wasn't running Windows 7, it was running Snow Leopard. See the official blog for more info: http://dvlabs.tippingpoint.com/blog/2011/02/02/pwn2own-2011
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
This article seems to indicate so:
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9214002/Safari_IE_hacked_first_at_Pwn2Own
"But the Safari patches still had a part to play in Vupen winning. If the vulnerability used by Vupen to hack Safari had been fixed in 5.0.4, TippingPoint would not have awarded the $15,000 prize."
Chrome got to use the built in auto mechanism just before the contest started (source 1, source 2, source 3) which is probably why the contestant registered to try to beat Chrome did choose not to try.
Here are Charlie Miller and Dino Dai Zovi's responses to the very question of which is more secure, Windows 7 or Mac OS X. These are Apple security researchers. It is the second question in the interview:
http://www.h-online.com/security/features/Hackers-versus-Apple-1202598.html
The summary: Mac is only safer from browser attacks than Windows because there is less malware written for it. That is, security through obscurity. But Mac is less safe from targeted attacks.
I am always surprised to hear people claim that somehow Mac is magically more secure. It does nothing but reveal their ignorance.
1. Are you disgusted by what you see as undaunted loyalty to a brand, or because you feel he is misrepresenting the facts?
2. Either way, I agree the frustration inherent in these kinds of debates. I find that these contests are a bit like the weird pulling locomotives 20 years with your teeth. It is a big event with all sorts of interest, but it doesn't have the decisive conclusion of a real sporting event.
Personally, my favourites are jousting and duellling, as there is little interpretation to make of the outcome.
3. Maybe there is a way in which these sorts of contests can be made a bit more rigorous, at least in the interpretation of results. The way it is currently is a bit like a bowling tournament or an awards show where everybody gets a prize for something and everybody feels a bit humiliated.
It might involve raising the stakes [ ie. each vendor has to submit a VP who will be sacrificed if their product loses ]; or a pre-established agreement on the interpretation of the outcome.
Hey, maybe there is something to this:
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/03/06/2142233/Disarm-Internet-Trolls-Gently
This is my reply
Granted, there was a spelling mistake, it should have said "built in auto update mechanism" but why mod me down?
Why cry about moderation?
I reported a local privilege escalation exploit in the Darwin x86-32/64 kernel about eight months ago and they still haven't released a patch yet. What's stupid is that fixing it is an obvious single line to change in the code.
Even if they used the sandboxing API, I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to find a bug like mine to get root access.
As an aside, if this exploit weren't specific to x86, I would've given the exploit to the iPhone jailbreak hackers instead of Apple.
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
The poster just above you seems to disagree with you.
The chatter is great, but no one seems to be answering the question of whether or not the exploit would work on the now current version of Safari - 5.04? I don't really care if it was released a few minutes before the contest. Does it prevent the exploit?
Whats this. An exploit found in precious unhackable apple products? Like i have always said, the only reason there arent widespread malware,exploits on macs are simply because no one wanted to make them. When someone WANTS to find exploits in anything they will.
Actually, no Chrome did not get to use the auto-update mechanism. None of the sources you cited say what you think they said. The software configuration was frozen 2 weeks before the contest, and Chrome 9 was the version to be tested. However, by releasing patches in the past 2 weeks, Apple, Mozilla, and Google ensured that any exploit that was fixed in the latest versions would not be awarded the prize, it would instead go to the first to exploit an unpatched vulnerability.
The reason the hacker who was scheduled to attack Chrome didn't show is because he told Google about the vulnerability 1-2 days before he found out he was selected to have the first attempt at attacking Chrome in the contest. Since he already reported the vulnerability, that vulnerability does not qualify for the contest. He didn't have another successful exploit of Chrome ready, so he didn't go to the contest. Had he waited a couple days, he would have known he was first up to attack Chrome, wouldn't have reported the vulnerability, and could have walked away with $20k.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
Both are accurate. The software running on the machines was frozen 2 weeks ago. However, to win the prize, the vulnerability must not have been patched in the latest release. That does not necessarily mean that the exploit works on the latest release, it could be that the vulnerability is still there, but the exploit might need some changes to work correctly. The way it was done this year is much more realistic since most users don't update immediately, and because an unpatched vulnerability that requires changes to the exploit is still an exploitable vulnerability. The hackers don't have to try to update their exploit at the last minute, they have 2 weeks to make sure it works correctly on the configuration to be tested. They only get 'screwed' if a specific vulnerability their exploit used was patched by the vendor before the start of the contest (or if it was a vulnerability that had already been reported to the vendor, even though it remained unpatched).
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
It's not $35k for a Chrome exploit, it's $20k. $20k from Google, $0k from Tipping Point if is falls on day 1, $10k each from Google and Tipping Point if it falls on days 2 or 3.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
I concur with this statement, Safari is just as bad as IE.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
If you recall the scene in Return of the Jedi where Vader throws Palpatine down the shaft to his spectacular doom? Something like that just happened with your karma.
Man blir trött av att gå och göra ingenting.
It must have been a Windows PC, running IE, made to look like iOS/Safari. We all know that Apples products don't contain vulnerabilities, whereas Microsoft's PCs can be hacked anytime after POST.
More money, more problems huh Steve...