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Chrome, Firefox, IE 10, Java, Win 8 All Hacked At Pwn2Own

Posted by timothy on from the soooory-eh dept.

mask.of.sanity writes "Annual Canadian hack fest Pwn2Own is famous for leaving a trail of bloodied software bits and today it did not disappoint. Security researchers tore holes through all major web browsers, breaking Windows 8 and Java, too (though the latter feat is not remarkable). Thankfully for the rest of us, the cashed-up winners will disclose the holes quietly to Microsoft, Mozilla, Google and Oracle, and the proof of concept attack code will remain in the hands of organisers only."

2 of 183 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Fundamentally Flawed by robmv · · Score: 5, Informative

    ChromeOS was designed to be tamper resistant, so it can detect changes on the installed code. but the UI is a freaking browser and because of that any vulnerability on the browser that doesn't need changes on the installed code is possible, like reading your stored passwords, accessing your web sites sessions, etc.

  2. Re:Researchers tore holes through browsers on Wind by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.internetnews.com/skerner/2011/03/why-pwn2own-doesnt-target-linu.html

    Pwn2Own will target IE, Firefox, Safari and Chrome all running on Windows 7. Windows XP isn't on the target list and neither is Linux, for different reasons.

    I spoke with Aaron Portnoy, Manager of the Security Research Team at HP TippingPoint the other day and asked him why Linux wasn't being included. Apparently the question is among the most common questions he is ever asked about Pwn2Own.
    "Linux is not an operating system that has widespread use with any one particular distribution, flavor or configuration," Portnoy said. "In general Linux is still a server-based operating system, people do use it on the desktop, but you can't go to BestBuy and buy Linux with a specific distro on it that everyone uses that has widespread market share. If we were to include Linux, we'd have even more controversy and we just don't want to deal it."