And the first one to fall

LizardKing · 29 Mar 2008 at 01:51

Show organizers offered a Sony Vaio, Fujitsu U810 and the MacBook as prizes, saying that they could be won by anybody at the show who could find a way to hack into each of them and read the contents of a file on the system, using a previously undisclosed "0day" attack.

The first one to get compromised was the Mac! Last years winner was caused by Apple software as well.

http://security.itworld.com/5013/mac-hacked-first-in-contest-080327/page_1.html

To be taken with a pinch of salt, but i do think Apple are riding the "Apple is safe from attacks" wave a bit to much these days.

marscay · 29 Mar 2008 at 14:52

doesn't really matter they'll always have a revolving door of apple tossers impatiently throwing their cash down to buy the next overpriced/overhyped system or software.

mattgaunt · 29 Mar 2008 at 15:10

apple and linux have the quality of not being that widely used, while they have floors, and security threats, they arent exploited because what is the point?

If i wanted to write a milacious piece of software I'd aim it at Windows to cause most problems and in once sense, be a good virus.

So mac is riding on that idea, and it is a fair comment, but if everyone goes to mac then they'll have the same problem as windows.

It doesnt mean mac or linux are safe just less likely to be targetted.

Every OS has its gd and bad points

TrX · 29 Mar 2008 at 18:00

mattgaunt said:
apple and linux have the quality of not being that widely used, while they have floors, and security threats, they arent exploited because what is the point?

If i wanted to write a milacious piece of software I'd aim it at Windows to cause most problems and in once sense, be a good virus.

So mac is riding on that idea, and it is a fair comment, but if everyone goes to mac then they'll have the same problem as windows.

It doesnt mean mac or linux are safe just less likely to be targetted.

Every OS has its gd and bad points

True to a point, but i feel that linux being open source allows descovered 0-Day vulns to be patched much quicker than waiting for the M$ or Crapple security depts.

And for that reason, you could argue;
Quicker patch, less exposure = more secure.

//TrX

LizardKing · 29 Mar 2008 at 19:34

mattgaunt said:
So mac is riding on that idea, and it is a fair comment, but if everyone goes to mac then they'll have the same problem as windows.

As true as that is, both the Linux and Vista machine remaided uncompromised in the 2nd day!
Microsoft have done extremly well in locking down IE in Vista (as painfull as it is to give praise to MS!), it was only until Flash was installed that it lost out.

http://dvlabs.tippingpoint.com/blog/2008/03/28/pwn-to-own-final-day-and-wrap-up

GarethDW · 30 Mar 2008 at 22:12

mattgaunt said:
apple and linux have the quality of not being that widely used, while they have floors, and security threats, they arent exploited because what is the point?

If i wanted to write a milacious piece of software I'd aim it at Windows to cause most problems and in once sense, be a good virus.

So mac is riding on that idea, and it is a fair comment, but if everyone goes to mac then they'll have the same problem as windows.

It doesnt mean mac or linux are safe just less likely to be targetted.

Every OS has its gd and bad points

You're missing the point of this competition. The people taking part in the competition were whitehat hackers, not blackhat ones. They weren't doing this to seek to cause as much damage by infecting the highest number of machines possible - they sought to exploit one machine as quickly as possible.

The reason I think that the Ubuntu laptop was the only one that wasn't pwned was not because Linux is more secure than either Windows or OS X. I think it has just as many flaws (not floors) as the other OSes, but these flaws aren't hidden away in the hope that nobody will see them. Instead, they're available for anyone and everyone to find - no reverse engineering required. The open source OS that has been examined by a million pairs of eyes across the world and has had countless vulnerabilities identified and announced publicly (and subsequently fixed) lasted longer than the one where the source code is kept in a vault in Cupertino or the one whose source code is kept hidden away in Redmond.

Whitehat hackers have taken a definite interest in both *nix and OS X in recent years. It's not as challenging for someone to produce an exploit for Windows these days... there isn't much kudos in finding a hole in Office, IE, ActiveX, etc. As you say, Apple is making a big deal of the fact that its OS is more secure than Windows... to me, that's like Steve Jobs is waving a red flag at all those whitehat hackers. Being the first to come out with a major Apple-related virus would be a big coup for a security expert, as it'd provide great publicity for their employer.

NicNac · 31 Mar 2008 at 05:26

I couldn't be less bothered I don't own any mac gear. all operating systems have their flaws. shouldn't this really be posted in the mac section?

FirebarUK · 31 Mar 2008 at 09:08

Keep in mind that no-one managed to hack the actual OS of any of the systems. It was the software layers on top..

bigredshark · 31 Mar 2008 at 11:59

LizardKing said:
As true as that is, both the Linux and Vista machine remaided uncompromised in the 2nd day!
Microsoft have done extremly well in locking down IE in Vista (as painfull as it is to give praise to MS!), it was only until Flash was installed that it lost out.

http://dvlabs.tippingpoint.com/blog/2008/03/28/pwn-to-own-final-day-and-wrap-up

It's just a pity they gave it so many security prompts in the process that it's nearly unusable.

I use a mac for all my home computer stuff and I couldn't care less to be honest, in the real world it's fairly secure...