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The annual Pwn2Own hacking competition wrapped up its 2015 event in Vancouver with another banner year, paying $442,000 for 21 critical bugs in all four major browsers, as well as Windows, Adobe Flash, and Adobe Reader.
The crowning achievement came Thursday as contestant Jung Hoon Lee, aka lokihardt, demonstrated an exploit that felled both the stable and beta versions of Chrome, the Google-developed browser that's famously hard to compromise. His hack started with a buffer overflow race condition in Chrome. To allow that attack to break past anti-exploit mechanisms such as the sandbox and address space layout randomization, it also targeted an information leak and a race condition in two Windows kernel drivers, an impressive feat that allowed the exploit to achieve full System access.
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Saturday March 21 2015, @11:48PM
HP owns the whole damn contest but yet can't seem to get the media to notice their involvement. What's the point of buying the whole thing if they don't use it?
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Funny) by zugedneb on Sunday March 22 2015, @12:36AM
The invisible hand of the market finally finds it's way into advertising...
People are assumed to be so impressed by the content, that they will chew through anything to find out who the sponsors are.
There is a peaceful time ahead of us, with minimal intrusion and extreme courtesy from the sponsors in general.
I know this for a fact.
old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity" + also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
(Score: 5, Interesting) by K_benzoate on Sunday March 22 2015, @12:56AM
And how many of these attacks only work if scripting/plugins are enabled? Letting every site you wander onto run code in your browser is insane, and it's even more insane that we've conditioned normal people into expecting functionality that requires it.
Climate change is real and primarily caused by human activity.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by CirclesInSand on Sunday March 22 2015, @02:21AM
It's not the code that matters (for security) as much as the side effects. It doesn't bother me so much that generalized program commands are running, it's the access that they have that is frightening. Popup windows, execute on close, microphone/camera integration, that's just a start. Combine that with plugin privileges being all-or-nothing rather than well defined and itemized, it's not the turing completeness that matters; it's the security that was decided by sellouts to advertisers and con artists.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 22 2015, @03:02AM
Looks like the firefox one is in the svg render.
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/advisories/mfsa2015-28/ [mozilla.org]
The second one was in javascript
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/advisories/mfsa2015-29/ [mozilla.org]
MOST people enable javascript at one point or another. Even if they use noscript.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 22 2015, @06:24AM
It's also harder to steal your car if you take off one of the wheels.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 22 2015, @09:58AM
Or if you pull the fuses when you park... something I used to do in my student days.
I also disable JavaScript and consider sites that require it broken.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 22 2015, @02:13PM
And how many of these attacks only work if scripting/plugins are enabled?
More importantly, how many only work on Windows?
EG, " it also targeted an information leak and a race condition in two Windows kernel drivers"
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Sunday March 22 2015, @02:10AM
Which 4 browsers did they mean by "major"? 3 of them had to be Firefox, Chrome, and IE. Was the 4th Opera? Maybe SeaMonkey? No, it was Safari.
(Score: 3, Touché) by CirclesInSand on Sunday March 22 2015, @02:15AM
So Lynx is still secure?
(Score: 2) by Appalbarry on Sunday March 22 2015, @03:33AM
Only if you don't install javascript....
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jasassin on Sunday March 22 2015, @10:44PM
OpenBSD just removed Lynx from the base install. I tried finding out why, there were at least a few references to security being a reason but no specific exploits listed. Maybe someone here has some better kung fu and can find out why OpenBSD just removed Lynx from the base install?
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0x663EB663D1E7F223
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 23 2015, @10:52AM
Safari is the default browser on OS X and iOS.
Opera and SeaMonkey have nothing on that.
(Score: 2) by TheGratefulNet on Sunday March 22 2015, @04:49AM
and yes, there are still 12 sites on line that are lynx compatible.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 22 2015, @05:14PM
This being one of them (posted with lynx).