Hack Chrome, Win $20,000 79
Posted
by
timothy
from the don't-quit-my-day-job dept.
from the don't-quit-my-day-job dept.
CWmike writes "Google will pay $20,000 to the first to exploit its Chrome browser at this year's Pwn2Own hacking contest at CanSecWest in Vancouver, BC, on March 9. At this year's Pwn2Own, researchers will pit exploits against machines running Windows 7 or Mac OS X as they try to bring down Microsoft's IE, Mozilla's Firefox, Apple's Safari and Chrome. The first researchers to hack IE, Firefox and Safari will receive $15,000 and the machine running the browser. The prizes are $5,000 more than those given for exploiting browsers at the last Pwn2Own contest, and three times more than the 2009 awards. 'We've upped the ante this time around and the total cash pool allotted for prizes has risen to a whopping $125,000,' said Aaron Portnoy, the manager of the sponsor, HP TippingPoint's security research team, which set the contest's rules Wednesday in a blog post written by Portnoy."
Chrome stands tall (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:of course not on linux (Score:2, Insightful)
First of all to quote the million pedantics we have here "Linux is a kernel NOT an OS" and second, which fricking one? There are about a bazillion Linux based distros out there, and ANY one they choose will be considered shite by the Linux geeks: Ubuntu? kiddie newb OS according to the guys here.
And then of course is the elephant in the room: Linux is only used by geeks that actually know enough about an OS to work on it and therefor are more secure simply by having more knowledge and experience. It is like the different between an Air Force flight mechanic and the guy that works on airplanes at the backwoods airport, in that one always lives with a wrench in his hand and is constantly working on different things (just like the Linux geeks I know which try different distros like normal people try on clothes) and the other that knows just enough to be dangerous, like the average Windows or Mac user I have to clean up after.
But in the end it is companies like Google that care about this, and with them it all comes down to demographics. Linux users are more likely to use Chromium because they actually care (or even know) about privacy issues, and are likely to tweak everything they run. Windows and Mac users run defaults a good 99.995% of the time and THAT is what companies like Google want to find out: Will their defaults make it easy to hack or not. Linux simply brings nothing to this discussion,anymore than letting someone like me go into the Windows machine and set everything up beforehand so it would be less of a target.
Re:The machine is a prize? (Score:2, Insightful)
*facepalm*