Hacking competition leaves Android, Windows Phone 7 undefeated (Apple, Blackberry cracked)

CNN Tech ^ | 03/20/2011 | Christina Bonnington, WIRED

[SeekAndFind]

From the results of the Pwn2Own hacking competition, it looks like Android and Windows Phone 7 are tough nuts to crack.

It took only two days for hackers to crack into the Apple and Blackberry operating systems during the three-day Pwn2Own tournament last week, while Android and Windows Phone 7 models were abandoned and left unhacked by the end of the contest.

Is this because their operating systems are more secure? Yes and no.

"The survival of a target does not automatically declare it safer than a target that went down," last year's Internet Explorer Pwn2Own winner Peter Vreugdenhil cautions. The contestants who were lined up to beat the Android and WP7 devices in the competition withdrew for a variety of reasons.

Pwn2Own, now in its fifth year, is a hacking competition divided into two areas: web browsers and mobile phones.

This year, Microsoft Internet Explorer 8, Apple Safari 5.0.3, Mozilla Firefox, and Google Chrome were the web-browser targets. In the mobile phone category, the Dell Venue Pro (Windows Phone 7), Apple iPhone 4 (iOS), BlackBerry Torch 9800 (Blackberry 6) and Nexus S (Android) were targeted.

The OS and browser versions were frozen last week (so for example, Apple's Safari 5.0.4 update was not used), ensuring that all contestants are working on the same version of each OS.

Pwning and owning occurs if the hacker defeats the frozen version. If the exploit they used still exists in the current firmware, they are also eligible to receive a monetary prize. The 2011 Pwn2Own competition ran March 9 to 11.

Vreugdenhil says many different factors determine how hard a target is to hack. There's the safety of the software itself, the exploit mitigations that are already in place for that software, and then the amount of research that has already been conducted

[shadowcat]

I love my EVO.

I don't play games as this is where most of the malware comes from.

[tophat9000]

I love my EVO too

But hear about the new The Evo 3D coming?

It has a 3d screen..but no glasses needed it like a holographic sticker and supposedly has the following hardware:

•4.3-inch 3D qHD capacitive 960 x 540 px display
•1730 mAh battery
•4GB internal memory with 8 GB SD card, expandable to 32 GB •1 GB RAM
•1.2 GHz dual-core Snapdragon CPU
•Android 2.3
•Dual 5 MP rear cameras (3D)
•1.3 MP Front camera
•records 2D @ 1080p, 3D @ 720p
•Dimensions = 5.0 x 2.6 x .48 inches
•DNLA support and HDMI port

[shadowcat]

No, I haven’t heard.

Snooping will now commence!

thnx

[NoLibZone]

"Safari, Chrome, iPhone, Android and Blackberry all use WebKit in their browsers, which means that they are all susceptible to exploitation through the browser -- and that's exactly how the iPhone and Blackberry were attacked."