MacBook Air Hacked In 120 Seconds
March 28, 2008
Boston (dbTechno) - Security researchers have managed to team together to win $10,000. They won the prize after they hacked into the MacBook Air in just two minutes.
It is believed that they hacked the MacBook Air using a vulnerability found in the Safari Web browser.
The team is known as the Independent Security Evaluators, and is made up of Charlie Miller, Jake Honoroff, and Mark Daniel.
They took part in the Pwn to Own contest put on by TippingPoint.
To win the contest, they hacked into, and gained full control of the MacBook Air in mere seconds.
The event was put on in Vancouver, Canada to check how the MacBook Air performed against other PCs running Windows Vista, as well as Ubuntu.
The first machine was the VAIO VGN-TZ37CN running Ubuntu 7.0. There was also the MacBook Air running OSX 10.5.2 and a Fujitsu U810 running Windows Vista Ultimate SP1.
The hackers managed to have a code already set up ona Web site. They were then able to hack into the MacBook Air by tricking the judges to visit the site.
This is believed to be a newly discovered and major vulnerability in the Safari Web browser. The vulnerability has been reported to Apple who is now working on the problem.
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“…hacked into the MacBook Air in just two minutes.”
“…gained full control of the MacBook Air in mere seconds.”
Minutes. Seconds. Lets just make it sound really impressive and say milliseconds. All three units are correct. We could also say 1/30th of an hour.
“It is believed that they hacked the MacBook Air using a vulnerability found in the Safari Web browser”
You don’t know for sure? Why not find out before you post the story? Oh sorry, thats right you are competing with other news sites. So to be clear they gained control of a MacBook air by using an exploit they already knew about in Safari. I wonder how long it took them to learn how to exploit Safari that then allowed them to win this contest in minutes that then allowed you to post a story with such an inaccurate title. I guess i’ll have to look elsewhere for the answer since you don’t even know for sure how they “hacked” the MacBook air.
HaHa! This isn’t the only thing wrong with a MAC. They crash also! I thought MAC’s were unbreakable and were non hackable and didn’t crash!!! But it’s all just lies. I had MAC’s crash many more times than Windows on a PC.
But lets face it, you have to protect yourself these days with security updates and no one is 100% safe anymore.
Should just buy PC hardware that’s cheaper than MAC hardware and install Linux on it and not pay for an over priced OS!!!!!
Not surprised, keep up the good hacking. MacBook air is nothing special, but nothing is…
lol… that first comment was funny.
lol at FrankForum. either you work for apple or you have a macbk air. touchy touchy. let’s have the whole internet community consult you before anyone makes a post or comment. just so we can make sure not to hurt your feelings next time