Internet Explorer 8 hacked within 24 hours
If you’re going to announce that your new browser is the safest on the market, you’d best be damned sure you’re right. It seems Microsoft releasing Internet Explorer 8 out of open beta yesterday was a red flag to a bull (or a challenge to a hacker) because within 24 hours a new exploit has been found in the browser.
The feat occurred at the annual CanSecWest security conference, which hosts its PWN2OWN hacking contest where the exploit was found. A German hacker going by the name of Nils found it and claims a prize of $5000 in cash and a Sony Vaio laptop as a prize.
It’s only fair to mention that the same hacker managed to claim an additional $10,000 for successfully hacking Safari and Firefox. There’s still two days left for more browsers to succumb to the hacker’s codey wiles – perhaps Chrome and Opera will let their guard slip as well.
Quite a bad day for Microsoft, you would say then? Well, yes – but not as bad as for Apple. At the same conference, security researcher Charlie Miller managed to hack a fully up to date MacBook in less than 10 seconds, beating his prize winning effort from 2008 by a full one minute and 58 seconds. Ouch.
Alan Martin
(via DaniWeb)
