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Related Sections: Apple  Security

Macbook Air hacked in less than 2 minutes

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The PWN 2 OWN hacking contest is on right now at CanSecWest, a huge security conference in Vancouver, and yesterday afternoon Charlie Miller won $10,000 there for hacking a new Macbook Air in 2 minutes.

Miller is known as the first programmer to hack the iPhone. Yesterday he was able to hack a Macbook Air by directing contest officials to a website that allowed him to seize control of the computer and find the designated winning file hidden on it. It wasn't as if he tried after many had failed— he was the first contestant to attempt a hack at this year's conference. We don't know what the bug was, how it worked, or what program on the Air it exploited because as soon as he finished the hack Miller had to sign a nondisclosure agreement that gives Apple time to fix its system's security weakness.

We're sure you'll sleep easy tonight knowing that a reputedly secure system like OSX can be hacked in less time than it takes some web pages to load. The other two computers up for hacking, the Sony Vaio (Ubuntu) and Fujitsu U810 (Vista), will probably fall today.

Yahoo News, via Engadget

 
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(2) Comments

LittleMissFairy:
It seems to me, that the MacBook Air is the most frequently and easily hacked device) ...More »


Comments

By Phantomgladiator at 11:27 PM ON 04/02/08

hey, what happened with the Sony and the Fujitsu? Did you only want to point out that an Apple product was hacked? No wonder the Apple fanboys think you're biased. You should be more thorough and careful.

By LittleMissFairy at 9:11 AM ON 04/07/08

It seems to me, that the MacBook Air is the most frequently and easily hacked device)
http://www.maconair.com/hacks
Is there anyone who didn't try this?


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