A $10,000 PRIZE and a free laptop encouraged security experts Charlie Miller, Jake Honoroff, and Mark Daniel to expose a brand new vulnerability in Apple's Safari web browser within two minutes according to a report from Softpedia.
In the CanSecWest contest, hackers had a go at three machines: a VAIO VGN-TZ37CN running Ubuntu 7.10, a Fujitsu U810 running Vista Ultimate SP1 and a MacBook Air running OSX 10.5.2.
In the first day of the challenge, sponsored by TippingPoint's Zero Day Initiative, no computer could be breached, as the organizers only allowed attacks over a network. The second day of the hacking contest allowed attackers to direct CanSecWest organisers to visit Web pages or open messages in e-mail clients.
Charlie Miller, the security expert who hacked the iPhone in 2007, breached the MacBook Air via a zero-day vulnerability that was disclosed only to Apple. It took Miller just two minutes to hack OS X Leopard.
The vulnerability has been acquired by the Zero Day Initiative, and has been 'responsibly disclosed' to Apple which is now working on the issue. µ
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