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PWN 2 OWN over: MacBook Air gets seized in 2 minutes flat
engadget.com — "And just think -- last year you were singing Dino Dai Zovi's praises for taking control of a MacBook Pro in nine whole hours. This year, the PWN 2 OWN hacking competition at CanSecWest was over nearly as quickly as it started, as famed iPhone hacker Charlie Miller showed the MacBook Air on display who its father really was.
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HackBook Air : Hackinnovation.
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"The mystery crack by Charlie Miller was dependent on visiting a website containing malicious code. The exploit took just two minutes to surface at the start of the day, which also invited guests to hack Linux and Windows systems.
The exploit was presented on the second day of the three-day conference and appeared only once the competition eased rules, permitting hacks to require user actions rather than the strictly automatic hacks that were allowed the day before."
The sad truth is that any system is vulnerable if you can get the user to do your bidding. However, this fact will not prevent a flood of comments along the lines of - OMG Mac was PWNED! Take that Macboys
Windows users will conveniently forget about the Blaster worm that PWNED so many Windows boxes which did not require any user interaction.-
I don't get it.
"just two minutes to surface"
Leopard was out for a while, they could have tested it for months.
Of course, once it is found, an exploit only takes a few minutes to get executed. -
In this case, "doing your bidding" wasn't much, though – clicking a link is enough.
As for the Blaster worm, one of the main reasons it was so immensely successful (if you can call it that) was that the idiots at Microsoft hadn't turned the firewall on by default.-
and the idiots who got it used microsoft products without getting a better firewall.
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Because adding 3rd party software with admin level access is excellent security practice.
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In XP, it's an absolute nightmare to run software without admin access. Tons of apps stop working correctly, or so I've heard.
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"...or so I've heard."
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"...or so I've heard."
Doublespeak for "I have no ***** clue about what I'm saying" -
It can be a bit a effort, yes. I really do not see the need to run a 3rd party firewall or an active AV personally.
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Burrgrinder, Hortnon: No, I say that because I personally haven't tried. I have no access to XP at the moment, so I cannot test it myself, but have heard that very little works. Would you prefer I lie?
At any rate, feel free to try it yourself. -
Running most software on XP without admin level access is certainly possible, many corporate environments have done so for years. The concern is that the user accts are placed in groups and have group policy set to allow them standard access. 90+ percent of software runs fine from this context, the only things in general that the user cannot run are utilities like Defrag, which on XP need to be run exclusively with admin rights.
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Vista has some thing called virtualization, for compatibility with legacy apps that require admin access to some folders and registry but without giving them actual admin access.
http://blogs.msdn.com/uac/archive/2006/02/22/53712 ...
http://www.dcr.net/~w-clayton/Vista/UAC/UAC_app_co ...
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Hey mactard, if windows or linux went down first would u except any number of ***** excuses like the ones i am reading here? The answer is NO, U sound like FOX news :)
Obama=PC
Hillary=Mac -
You do have to accept the fact that even after they relaxed the rules Vista and Linux stood for the rest of the day, Mac got hacked in 120 seconds.
Next time Apple airs one of those Mac Vs PC ads I will have a good laugh, the Mac guy better be coughing this time.-
The mac wasn't /hacked/ in 120 seconds. The author had likely been sitting on the hack for months waiting on the competition. It's fairly common practice, and I know a few friends who went to the conference with plans like that.
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ha yes, and none of the hackers could find a Vista or Linux machine to try to hack them before the conference.
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Have you not forgotten the recent security updates were installed as well , plus a whole lot of other usual applications , many of whom have their own separate suit of security vulnerabilities !
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To be fair, everyone probably wanted to "pwn and own" the Macbook Air rather than the somewhat pedestrian Vista and Ubuntu PCs.
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that is exactly my thinking. exactly..the problem with these digg "debates" about which platform is the best, is that there are 3 people who actually know what they are talking about, and then 2000 people who saw a mac, or linux box, and have no idea how to really truly use them. I have certifications/ professional experience on all 3 platforms, and I like XP, dont like Vista much, and love Mac. But the sour taste from Microsoft comes from there shameless attempts to steal ideas from the Mac world, and there suppresive FUD tactics to hurt mac and linux, MS is not only *****, its also a pretty uncool company.
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Why it is not upgradeable in either memory or hard drive like the other notebooks and the battery is a right royal pain to change every twelve months or so (19 screws to remove and replace with 10 off vertical too , one could call that a not very user friendly interaction in comparison to the less then 30 seconds on the other two machines!) !
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that is iHackBook Air... every apple product has an i before it
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Take that, Mac fanboys. Not even Vista's that bad!
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But it does fit in a Manila envelop ;0
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He hacked it in as much time as most computers take to boot up, wow...
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You do understand that he used a hack that he already developed, probably taking hundreds of hours, and simply browsed to the website hosting the exploit. Also note, that if it was a remote exploit on webkit it's likely to exist on other platforms and browsers too, but you were more interested in the coolness of a second comment then actually understanding what's going on, weren't you.
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I guess he wanted that MacBook Air real bad.
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"He hacked it in as much time as most computers take to boot up, wow..."
...On the second day of the competition. And only after they relaxed the rules. -
as much as i wanted to digg your comment i just had to digg the one after yours first
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Eat it macboys.
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Exactly!
It just goes to show, if someone could be bothered to put their mind to making viruses for a mac, windows and mac would be the same security-wise. -
hacking and virus's are different. Generally Unix which mac is based on is very secure and you would find it pretty difficult to really write any major virus' for it. It would be easier aiming for quicktime, safari , itunes etc since they are less secure.
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Um, isn't that exactly what most PC viruses etc. do? If it wasn't for IE PC wouldn't have two thirds the issues.......
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Which is how this exploit apparently works.
None of the machines were hacked during the pure remote network access stage, which is the only stage that is unlikely to involve app vulnerabilities much. -
I'd rather get a virus than get hacked.
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Virus's what?
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RTFA! Dominicc2003 is wrong. He didn't hack the Mac Book Air (It wasn't a hardware hack) he didn't hack Leopard (it wasn't an OS hack) he hacked Safari - he used a new but known exploit of a weakness in Safari and only when user interaction was allowed. Embarrasing for Apple - yes, the end of the world as we know it - no.
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Not to mention this exploit will be fixed pretty damn quick, especially now that it has gained such popularity due to this story.
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Was it even the latest build of Safari? It may already be fixed.
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Who uses Safari in the first place?
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Not really. Even if you get through IE on Vista because IE runs in what is called a "protected mode", which is a feature of the OS, the process is isolated such that you will not get past the it to get to anything else for a hack to be successful. Hacking Vista through IE running in protected mode would be quite tough.
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Oh damn, macs have been hacked what....twice now? and your precious PC's have been bent over the table for years.... get over it.
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Well, the real news is that no one actually wanted the Vista machine, so everyone attempted to hack the Mac instead.
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Sorry, that comment makes no sense. There was a prize of $10,000 dollars on the line, plus winning the comp that got exploited. Any hacker who new he could PWN the Vista box would have the motivation of cash in the pocket, plus a new laptop that they could choose to wipe and install whatever OS they wanted onto it. Plus street cred.
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lol, well, it makes sense when you take it as the joke it is. Besides, there really isn't any street cred in hacking Microsoft anymore, but there is when you hack a Mac. On top of that, he used a known exploit to perform the hack. Perhaps he was after the easy money, AND the Macbook Air?
Regardless, I'm still laughing at the comments for this article. So many Mac fanboys defending their most precious OS, and so many Microsoft fanboys ready to defend any comments saying that Windows isn't any better. I mean, take for example the post by "FutureGuy" below. I think I hurt him deeply with my comment.
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this is a opening for you at Fox news, go to www.foxnews.com to apply.
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Someone get on making a mac virus already. Let them taste it. See how they have just been lucky that they have been on an unpopular computer and virii people didn't care about thier sub 5% marketshare. Let them see that their computers are not made better, just marketed better. Its time to knock the growing douchebag population back down a rung. I can't wait to see them try to fix a broken mac. THIS IS GONNA BE GREAT! NA-NA-NA-NA-HEY-HEY-HEY--GOODBYE
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One isolated hack versus a decade of nonstop hackage. I'm eating it up and ***** loving it.
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I think you missed the part that Vista and Linux stood for the whole day without getting hacked, that's a little longer then 120 seconds.
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ok
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Isolated hack? This is a browser hack, it could be easily used to exploit any mac out there where people use safari. And to say windows is hacked more is ridiculous. OSX has way more flaws. And on top of that windows was historically only vulnerable because it didn't have a firewall on by default. It enabled virii to spread automatically.
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Odds of this story making it to the front page .01%
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FTA "He was the first contestant to attempt an attack on any of the systems." Thats kind of biased isn't it? But then again 2 minutes is awfully pathetic.
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Notice, no one was able to hack the Mac remotely. This guy had to direct someone to a site that ran his elicit code. Not quite as seriously as the article suggests.
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This is pretty ***** sweet. Now someone need to parody the ***** out of those Macads.
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Or crack Vista so that the old ads actually have *SOME* substance, rather than comparing an operating system released in 2007 with one released in 2001.
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Except that there still are NO viruses for OS X you cretin
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gotta love advertising @ the wrong time
http://i27.tinypic.com/fan6o3.jpg -
It's been done MANY times. Try youtube.
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[fat quite old executive] I'm a Windows
[cool looking web-designer lookalike guy] I'm pwned
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He obviously figured out his hack ahead of time. It took him two minute to "direct" safari to his already existing hack (must be a long url?) on his website. Who knows how long it took him to write the actual hack...
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They had no physical access someone else had to open a email...
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What a stupid apple apologist!
He obviously doesn't know that most PCs are 'hacked' this way, by directing the ignorant user to a compromised site. Mac users are even more ignorant and happily wrapped up in their false sense of security (coz, like, macs can't be hacked or catch viruses).-
Ain't that the ***** truth. I had one woman tell me her GodMac could survive a lightning strike. She was dead ***** serious.
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It's not like mac users really need to be afraid of this one hack out there, so it's not really a false sense of security. Truth be told, this one hack isn't even in the wild, so there really is no need to be afraid.
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The same applied to other systems, Vista and Ubuntu. Doesn't matter how you try to twist it, Mac was breached pathetically fast.
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Have the other 2 been breached yet? With how [apparently] pathetic Vista's security is (Despite the complete lack of remote flaws, etc, IIRC) I would expect it to be hacked first and 10x faster than the other 2 systems.
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The "speed" of this type of attack isn't really relevant. The speed in which an attack is perpetuated is only relevant when attacking a remote system with an unknown set of services or entry points. Say you're determined to get in to a server. You would sit down and start scanning for services to attack, then you use your extensive experience and knowledge of exploits to attempt attacks against each of those exploits. That takes time.
In the case of the attack mentioned in the article, the user visited a web page. There's no valid frame of reference for this type of attack? How long did the author spend searching for the vulnerability in Safari? Then, you'd need another frame of reference. How long does it typically take for someone to find a vulnerability in an application?
The time it took is really irrelevant.-
If you're going to digg down, at least offer a rebuttal. I'm not downplaying the attack, I'm just confused as to why everyone is so focused on the time it took? My opinion is that most of the people that are touting the time it took don't really understand what is happening here, so I offered an explanation.
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You make a valid point, but If this was an actual exploit in the wild, instead of a technical demonstration from a "White Hat" - then all the news services would be harping on how quick the exploit is capable of gaining access to a system. People have gotten trained on the idea that the time an expoit can be carried out relates to how severe it can be in the real world, which is not always the case.
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ok, forget the time. It was still broken.
Admittedly, people are making this a bigger deal of this than it is. It was only a browser exploit. The mac does a good job at security. However, I've never gotten a virus on any of my xp installs either. I'm sure you could exploit any operating system with direct interaction with it.
It shouldn't matter what os we run.-
It _is_ a big deal. I stated in my follow up that I'm not trying to downplay a remote code execution exploit, which happens to fall in the highest category of severity as far as exploits go. I'm confused as to why the time matters.
* Compose email
* Send
* Recipient opens email
* Safari launches
* Safari gets owned
The actual infection occurs in a matter of moments. ZOMG!!! Sploit in milliseconds!!! -
It matters because the time and effort required to find and exploit a vulnerability is in many ways a better measure of the security of a system than the actual amount of time required to exploit each individual computer.
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dude your right, if he hacked in w/o previous work than that would be impressive. Its totally twisted!
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He used a crossover cable to his own Mac, where the exploit was.. I could have used a crossover to a car battery, and fried the sucker.. and won 10 grand!
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Most good hacks are planned ahead of time.
It's not like the movies where they put no their virtual reality eye piece and hack through an SGI scene of 3D binary numbers.
You research current exploits and then you PERFECT the code to run the exploit and go from there potentially crashing, taking control or plant a trojan.
Even when hackers HACK, most of the time they are either using known exploits or known weak points in IT defenses or OS defenses.
In fact, pretty much anyone good at anything practices and plans and plans and practices. Even sports nerds practice practice practice and that, in effect, is coding different uses of exploits or even looking for new exploits.
Hacking a system by finding a new exploits is probably pretty rare. You would usually be testing for exploits on a test system on your own LAN or virtual machine.
Obviously the most reliable weak spot in IT is the user, You can hack most any place by doing old fashion detective work easier than penetrating the network. Many security places will target users and either obtain info from them indirectly such as hacking their home system or just watching them OR give away free CD's or free USB keys outside the business knowing their employees will be most likely to use them either at work or home.
I'm sure this exploit won't be hard to fix. Mac is built on BSD and it's hard to say, even with Apple's code, that it's an insecure OS. It's not built around security, but neither is Linux or Windows. They all allow privilege elevation. So that means your typing your admin password in as much as humanly possible or you allow more root commands to users.
The plain old detective work makes entering the admin password all the time is a major risk to full blow security. However, overall the PC security market has bigger problems, such as hacking encryption at the hardware level and the overall mystery of how to trust anything a client send you basically as not being forged. Most firewalls are just not up the task either, but WHY bother when you the user is SO STUPID.
Have a revolving encryption all you want, but if someone compromises a client with a physical attack, it's all for not and that's usually the easiest attack. You can use all types of simple ways to con your way into a business, slip a USB key in somewhere or just pay an employee a small bribe.
We've definitely got too much focus on the technological side of security while users continue to be the weak point. -
so you are saying its not fair because he cheated by using safari?
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I think that was the point. First person to exploit the unbreakable defense of a Mac. If they had to start form scratch people probably would have been pretty bored for a few days.
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So you mean that since the exploit is avaiable to any system running safari (and what systems come with safari pre-installed?) it's not apple's fault?
The other curious thing is that apple handles quite little part of its operating system, security is mostly BSD-taken, and which code they flaw??
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