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IE8, Safari and Firefox fall at Pwn2Own 2010

Internet Explorer 8, Safari and Firefox web browsers have all fallen victim to a PWNAGE at this years Pwn2Own 2010 security contest.
Written by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, Contributing Writer

Internet Explorer 8, Safari and Firefox web browsers have all fallen victim to a PWNAGE at this years Pwn2Own 2010 security contest.

Peter Vreugdenhil defeated Internet Explorer 8 on the Windows 7 platform despite security features such as ASLR and DEP, while star of Pwn2Own 2009 "Nils" cracked Firefox, also on the Windows 7 platform.

Mac users shouldn't be too smug either, since Charlie Miller managed to circumvent Apple's best defenses to compromise the Safari web browser on the Mac OS X platform.

So far, the only browser to remain standing is Google's Chrome, because none

Note: Details on all the exploits used at Pwn2Own will be shared by contest organiser TippingPoint with the relevant vendors, allowing patches to be developed.

of the hacking contestants chose to target that browser.

The moral of this is simple - if a determined attacker wants to compromise a system, enough bugs exist on both the Windows and Mac platforms (and iPhone) to make this possible.

Sobering thought ...

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