Teenager hacks Google Chrome with three 0day vulnerabilities
Summary: "Pinkie Pie," who asked to remain anonymous because he had not been authorized by his employer to participate in the contest, said he chained three different vulnerabilities to build an exploit to escape the Chrome sandbox.
A teenage hacker who goes by the "Pinkie Pie" handle has hacked into Google Chrome using three distinct zero-day vulnerabilities to evade the browser's protective sandbox.
The exploit was used as part of Google's Pwnium hacker contest and earned the researcher the maximum $60,000 cash prize.
"Pinkie Pie," who asked to remain anonymous because he had not been authorized by his employer to participate in the contest, said he chained three different vulnerabilities to build an exploit to escape the Chrome sandbox.
A Google spokesman on site confirmed the winning exploit. He said the company's security response process would kick in immediately to push out a patch.
"We have a team standing by waiting for this. We have three different teams working on putting together the fix, building a patch and releasing it for our customers," he said.
[ SEE: How Google set a trap for Pwn2Own exploit team ]
While "Pinkie Pie" was previously unknown to onlookers here, Googlers described him as a "known and respected security researcher."In an interview after successfully launching the drive-by download exploit, Pinkie Pie said he worked for about one-and-a-half weeks to find the vulnerabilities and write a reliable exploit.
The exploit worked on a fully patched Windows 7 machine (64-bit) and did not require any user action beyond normal web browsing.
Pinkie Pie has never submitted a vulnerability report to Google and created this multi-stage attack specially for the Pwnium contest.
He said he never considered selling the vulnerability to third-party brokers. "I've never sold a vulnerability before."
Strangely, which sandbox escapes are rare, Pinkie Pie said the easiest part of his attack was jumping out of the Chrome sandbox after the initial exploit.
"I got lucky because I found a way [to jump out of the sandbox] very early. I figured it out by looking at it carefully," he added.
He declined to discuss specifics of the vulnerabilities or the exploit techniques, deferring comments to Google representatives.
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Talkback
I'm shocked, shocked I tell you, to hear that there's another chrome
Umm...
Why Fellow Brony?
Misunderstanding
Confused
He isn't hacking for personal gain (Aside from the prize money), he is a security researcher who hacks things to expose weaknesses that the companies can then fix and prevent other hackers with similar skill but less noble goals from exploiting. If you had actually read the article...
This paints bronies (And Pinkie) in a GOOD light, and considering how much the media tends to misrepresent us, we should take what positive press we can get.
You missed a bit.
lol
Pinkie Pie
Where are Linux Geek and Deitrich?
You ever notice
Wow
What's interesting is that the much touted Windows ASLR and DEP mitigations have fallen more times than any individual browser! These hackers are destroying those mitigations at will, like a knife through butter. Looks as if ASLR and DEP may actually have just as many holes as your typically browser, yet I don't recall ASLR and DEP vulnerabilities being discovered and patched monthly as is the case with browser holes. I guess that's what happens when you don't have enough people looking closely at your code. You can't fix what you can't find, and that allows users to get a false sense of security when they see low vulnerability counts.
Well yeah...
Dep/ASLR were not invented by MS
I always find it funny when people credit MS with those technologies. Microsoft simply stole it like they do everything else.
Just wondering..
Or was it really because he 'borrowed' some of the zero day exploits from his employers?
Pinkie Pie for President!
The world needs more Pinkie Pies!
Maybe if more companies paid folks when they report real vulnerabilities .... ?
Just
This is not how you write secure code!
Come on, this is not how one writes secure code! No code is becoming more secure by reacting to vulnerabilities found by others --- one has to design and write the code that it cannot be exploited.
AND YOU IMAGINE IF. . . .
All the software in the world be BLOATED big time.
.
Maybe SOME hacking is a good thing?
.
Pinkie Pie is an expert fourth wall breaker.
Made me think my fellow brony. XD
But on the good side...
What do you need to know to become a white hat? Reading code? Memory? making downloads?