MacBook Air cracked in two minutes
- March 27th, 2008
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- 2 Comments
IPhone hacker Charlie Miller compromised a MacBook Air in a mere two minutes at CanSecWest security conference. He won $10,000 in prizes by hacking the Air after the judges visited a web site Miller created for the contest. None of the contestants were able to hack into the MacBook, a Sony VAIO running Linux, or a Fujitsu U810 on the first day because the rules state they could not induce the judges to visit websites or run executables. Once they relaxed the rules, Miller won handily. They were required to hack into at least one of the boxes using a yet-unreleased hack. Miller apparently used a Safari exploit to compromise the MacBook, giving him full access to the machine over the network.
[Thanks, Windexh8er]
Everybody’s going to jump on the linkbait Mac angle on this story, but it misses the more interesting story:
Nobody was able to hack any of these machines over the network, even with the promise of $10,000. The show organizers had to loosen up the event rules just so that you’d have something to write about.
What do you think - does this mean that our OS’s are getting more secure, or that these hackers are slackers?
Or maybe the hackers think the amount of money is not enough :P