Most of you probably didn’t know that there is an annual hacking competition called ”Pwn2Own”. For those who are wondering what the word “Pwn” means, is an internet slang term, derived from the verb “own”, and it means “to appropriate or to conquer to gain ownership. This is exactly hwat a hacker does to your computer, he/she essentially owns it, or takes control of it.

Well, this year’s competition is underway, and the contstants are trying to hack the leading web browsers. Unfortunately, we must report that three of the leading web browsers have browsers have been hacked on the first day of the competition. Microsoft’s Intenet Explorer, Mozilla’s Firefox and Apple’s Safari web browser were all exploited on the first day, with Safari being the first to fall. (Read on to find out which browser remains standing!)

arstechnica.com reports:

A recent contest at CanSecWest, an event that brings together some of the most skilled experts in the security community, has demonstrated that the three most popular browser are susceptible to security bugs despite the vigilance and engineering prowess of their creators. Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer were all exploited during the Pwn2Own competition that took place at the conference.

Reports are that Apple’s Safari browser was the first to fall:

Security researcher Charlie Miller, in a repeat performance of last year, used a prepared exploit to crack the Safari web browser on a MacBook running the latest version of Mac OS X in a matter of seconds.

Actually, SoftPedia reports that Safari was hacked in just 10 seconds!

But the good news is that one browser was left standing. Our attention was caught by a headline stating:

Chrome only browser left standing after day one of Pwn2Own

Google’s Chrome browser, however, was the only one left standing—a victory that security researchers attribute to its innovative sandbox feature.

That’s right, after day one, the only browser the hackers could not hack was Google Chrome. This ironic because just earlier today, ZDnet posted an article questioning the security of the various browsers. In refering to Google Chrome, they said:

Google Chrome is tough to exploit because it takes a sandbox model—that’s how Chrome can keep running even though a site crashes. In other words, a site crash means Chrome just loses a tab not the whole browser. However, Miller notes that if there’s enough money on the table Chrome could be exploited.

Well, the money is on the table. A 25 year old computer science student has so far won himself $15,000 for hacking Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari, but despite the money, Chrome has still not been hacked. Google seems to know what they are doing, but the competition isn’t over yet. On day two, the hackers will have another crack at the browsers. We’ll see what happens, but for now, Google Chrome is the world’s most secure browser.

UPDATE: The competition has ended and Google Chrome has not been compromised. See the following article for details.
Hackers steer clear of Google Chrome, say too challenging

Advertisement