Security Vulnerability Showdown: Mac OS vs. MS Windows Vista vs. Ubuntu (Linux )
One of the most "exciting" conference took place in town last week - The CanSecWest conference 2008 (the world's most advanced conference focusing on applied digital security) was held in Vancouver, B.C. Canada. And of course, the most exciting event in the conference would be the "PWN2OWN 2008" contest, where three laptop computers each equipped with Mac OSX 10.5.2, MS. Windows Vista Ultimate SP1, and Ubuntu 7.10 (linux) are put to the stand to some brilliant "hackers" to break. The first person succeed take the laptop he/she breaks plus a cash prize. Specific rules applies to each day of the contest, regulations will be gradually relaxed over time, but the cash prize is also shrinking while the clock is ticking...
The first day, under the strict condition that only the default OS could be targeted, no security breach reported among all three machines. The second day (Thursday, Mar 27th, 2008), stand applications like email clients, browsers were allowed to be targeted and guess who was the first to go? The brand new MacBook Air with OSX 10.5.2 went down due to an undisclosed Safari (the default web browser for Mac) flaw. The Windows Vista held one more day and went down on the third day (Friday, Mar 28th, 2008). On that day, the contest rule was even more relaxed where more "popular applications" can be installed on the laptops. Thanks to an previously unknown flaw in Adobe's Flash software, thus the Windows Vista fell...
The Sony Vaio laptop running Ubuntu remained "un-compromised" at the end of the conference. The MacBook Air winners collected $10,000 and the Vista breakers collected $5,000. What a nerve wracking event!
