Apple had a rough security week.
Under the contest rules, organizers offered the Sony Vaio (Ubuntu 7.10), Fujitsu U810 (Vista Ultimate), and the MacBook (OS X 10.5.2) as prizes. Sure, the MacBook fell first at the Pwn2Own contest at CanSecWest last week. And yes, the MacBook was fully patched and still fell. But the odds were strong that the MacBook would have been the first to fall no matter what Apple did.
Why?
Glory. Taking down a MacBook gets the headlines. It's sexy. It's a blogger's dream. The more prominent Apple becomes the more hackers want to attack it. Simply put, security by obscurity isn't an option for Apple anymore. Why wouldn't hackers target the MacBook first?
Based on that aforementioned theory MacBook's fate was sealed.
I reckon that
And that brings me to the Ubuntu laptop. Linux made it out of Pwn2Own unscathed. Does that mean that Ubuntu is unhackable? Not quite. It just means that hackers didn't see the glory in taking down Ubuntu, which is a small sliver of the desktop OS market. Rest assured, if Pwn2Own ran another day Ubuntu would have stumbled too.
When you see Ubuntu hacked repeatedly you know the Linux OS has hit the big leagues.