PWN 2 OWN contest lets hackers choose Vista, OS X or Linux
By Darren Murph 
posted Mar 27th 2008 9:40AM
posted Mar 27th 2008 9:40AM
Last year's PWN 2 OWN contest at the CanSecWest security conference went over way better than expected (read: exploits were glorified), so this year, organizers have spiced things up by letting hackers have their way with three separate machines. The Linux, OS X and Vista-based rigs were all setup as similarly as possible in order to "make sure the attack surface was the same on all of them." For attendees in Vancouver, there sits a $20,000 top prize -- which dwindles with each passing day as restrictions on attacks ease up -- but it can only be acquired if an all new zero-day cyber roundhouse kick is used. Anyone here going to give it a go? You get to keep the freshly victimized laptop too, you know.
Is there a hacker school?
Yes, it's like a secret guild. You hack someone's computer and the hackmother will come to you in the middle of the night and ask if you wish to join.
Actually there is a training program where you can become a Certified Ethical Hacker:
http://www.eccouncil.org/CEH.htm
"Certified Ethical Hacker"
There are many, many security certifications. None of them are training to become a hacker, but rather a very loose test of you security knowledge (considering they are multiple choice scantron tests they don't even test if you could do something in practice, just that you know the correct bubble to fill in. Also, the various certifications having varying degrees of depth). The books and courses that train for the certification train for the tests (I say this having the CEH and currently working on my CISSP). There are dozens of better security books that familiarize people with attack concepts, but the best way to learn is to read that material and then socialize with people who know a great deal more (either on the internet, or the app/host/network security guys at your company), pretty much like all other knowledge.
"Are you ethical?" "Yeah, and I got a certificate to prove it!"
On another note, when will they introduce Certified Ethical Politicians?
@Do I look indie yet
You are wrong, one of the voices of the hackmother will visit you
"Ethical politician" is rather more oxymoronic than ethical hacker
@do i look indie yet
Just like Harry Potter?
Here are two links to get you started:
http://www.2600.com/
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/routers/ps259/index.html
First prize will likely go to someone with Autism.
Nahhh.... they're all too busy counting cards!
Wapner, WAPNER!!!!
Can you say bring out the whips.
Everybody's gonna want a shot at the MBA, of course.... The Linux and Windows machines won't get any love. Or hate, since they're hacking into them??!
"Pwn (which rhymes with own) is a hacker term meaning to take control of a computer."
Niiiice...
Actually, "pwn" is "own"... Only a typo- thats the way it was started and it's been a stupid meme ever since...
Kind of like "zOMG". The Z key was accidentally hit on the way to the Shift button.
I wonder what kind of memes would've been born from mainstream dvorak use.
Good question! We might end up with ;MG or YWN
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:KB_United_States_Dvorak.svg
And here I was thinking it was short for pawn. I guess this line makes more sense now: 'pwn teh box'
Can you say bring out the whips.
sorry double post.
How did you manage to say sorry double post when you could've just not posted the second time? :confuse:
it looks like those macs are running tiger not leopard what gives! or is it just a random shot of people using macs?
The picture is from last years event. If you check the link in the article engadget reused the picture.
TRUE HACKERS don't use Operating systems us regular people get from stores.
TRUE HACKERS build better versions of their hacked OS and rename it with a custom handle.
@Flashpoint:
You don't know what the hell you're talking about, do you? A smart coder can use any OS to his/her dirty work, though I would avoid a Windows box in an effort at efficiency.
Besides, most hacks are much simpler than security people would like to admit.
Gian
@Flashpoint
I dont want to make it seem like im picking on your, but dang dude. You don't really have a clue what you are talking about. A hacker will use what ever gets the job done. Be it vista, Ubuntu or Tiger. To paint hackers with such a broad brush saying they are above simple consumer oriented operating systems tells me you watch too much "The Net" and "Matrix". Man.
it looks like those macs are running tiger not leopard what gives! or is it just a random shot of people using macs?
20k prize? after taxes in canada? .. anyone?
$10
OneLove:
19.6k The U.S. Dollar is tanking.
no tax on prize winnings in Canada. if you win $20000 you keep it all, unlike the states.
Thats crazy. If you were to win a 100 million dollar jackpot, 40 mill is taxed away here, I believe. No tax would be sweet, but then again, I've (sadly) never won a jackpot.
We've actually been at parity for a bit now - so it would be almost the same here as in the states. Also, Canada DOES deduct taxes from lottery-obtained income. (4% I believe).
I want someone to hack the oil companies and redistribute their billions back into the pockets of people who don't even drive cars, but, must suffer air pollution.
ok hero.
Robin Hood much?
Please don't tell me you are sitting down on your computer wearing green tights, cause honestly, I really don't want that image in my mind.
Yes, because we all know that no other products they consume produce air pollution. And then we can go after Gun, Tobacco, and Alcohol companies for killing people. Because it's totally their fault for forcing people to buy and abuse their products. Because we can't hold individuals responsible for their own actions. Everyone would be perfect without evil companies making us buy their crap.
@Flashpoint
After bypassing your mom's belkin firewall, I would add a bunch of bookmarks to your FF to various economic resources that would educate you on how capitalism works and how it benefits you more than a communist system of taking one person's money and handing to another person who doesn't deserve it.
Then I would modify your DNS settings so that all the blogs and forums you attempt to go to forward to sesamestreet.com because its apparent you need that more than we need you contributing to this blog.
http://pbfcomics.com/?cid=PBF205-Robin_Hood.jpg
Hmm, how can I use a computer to take the profits earned by an oil company, and then put them into my own account?
Better call my stockbroker and ask what software he's using. You do realize the oil companies are publicly-owned and traded, right? That means anybody can be making profits right now, as long as they own stock.
Just because you don't drive a car doesn't mean you don't use oil. How do you think the generators that produce the energy used by the computer you're typing on operate? Odds are you're not using solar, hydro, wind, or nuke. And even if you were, do you think that equipment was manufactured in a 100% green facility?
looks like no one has won yet on the first day of the contest. perhaps day two will reap something.
see: http://dvlabs.tippingpoint.com/blog/2008/03/26/day-one-cansecwest-pwn-to-own-results
2 thoughts:
1. There is no posible way to setup Windows to behave like OS X or Linux, they would to rewrite the whole thing :-P
2. I know the most powerful DoS attack for Windows ever (sadly, I can't travel to USA right now and win the prize) --> just turn on the Windows machine and wait ;-D
the contest is in Vancouver
LOL
True, a BSOD is imminent!!!
Watch out you guys, this guy's got jokes.
I'd simply like to see a breakdown of each of the configs after the event.. how the hell can you set up a Linux box JUST LIKE a Winblows box that is set up JUST LIKE an OSX box!? The differences between the OS' just seem too profound to make that possible...
weird.
There is some level of baseline you can setup. For example, have the default firewall enabled in Vista, OS X, with default settings (so you can test the secure defaults), OR set it up so that they all have the same firewall rules. Likewise you can keep UAC on to mimic sudo. The complexity comes from what applications are installed. Try and make sure that each as the same type of default applications (Firefox for linux, IE 7 for Vista, Safari for OS X) to mimic what the average user is likely to choose on each of those systems. If you were trying to come up with a baseline workstation environment you could do a pretty good job creating comparable systems.
I guess it's the word "linux," being the most generic, that gave me the most pause. Security on random linux builds has always been entirely dependent on libary versions, active services, service versions, etc.
IOW, since there's really no "default install" for linux, it's hard to imagine a direct comparison to such an install in Vista or OSX.
The main reason I'd like to see the specific builds is so that I can recreate them for use in my own pentest lab(s) and wargaming at work... ;)
Well, you do have default installs for various distros. For example Ubuntu installs with certain apps by default, as does redhat, etc.
Whoops, forgot! BTW, I don't own a car. That makes the profit even sweeter!
Maybe it's just me... but isn't this a little like posting a few security guards to represent a firewall in front of a school locker (any version of Windows), and a few security guards in front of Fort Knox (Mac OS X / Linux)? Even if you can get past the security guards, good luck getting in to Fort Knox... they've allowed the world to help improve their security thanks to the software being open source.
The Windows NT kernel (2000, XP, Vista) will never be as secure as Mac OS X anything (as it's based on FreeBSD) or Linux anything unless they rewrite its kernel. You'd need third party software to bring Windows up to speed... and this isn't open source fanboy talk, either. On the bright side, I was surprised that Engadget didn't go in to detail about the laptop running Mac OS. ;)
wth are you talking about? Only reason why WinNT kernel doesn't seem as secure as OSX is cuz it has a bigger market share. of course it's gonna seem like it's the most vulnerable cuz it's the most hacked compared to OSX. but in reality, OSX is less secure than WinNT esp. Vista.
This is what happens when ignorant people don't pay attention to statistics. As an example, "Oh, there are 50,000 hacked PCs and only 1,000 hacked Macs....Macs must be more secure." Read the fine line. Of the 50,000 hacked, what is the total population? and of the 1,000 hacked Macs, what is their total population? Naturally, even with a super defense, no matter how big PC market is, the hackers for PC are also bigger compared to Macs. So it would appear that the WinNT kernel is weak, when if fact, it isn't.
Another population example, if you have a city and a lot of people will gang up to attack it, of course some holes will be exposed. In comparison, if you have another city but WAY FEWER people attacking it, of course it's going to seem "harder" to penetrate because less people are collaborating.
Don't believe everything the media tells you...especially Apple. "Crash-proof" ya right. I've seen many OSX crash whatever version they are. "More Secure" cuz they twist statistics.
The Windows NT kernel (2000, XP, Vista) will never be as secure as Mac OS X anything (as it's based on FreeBSD) or Linux anything unless they rewrite its kernel."
Too true, they'd have to rewrite the kernel to remove all the additional security embedded within it that neither FreeBSD nor Linux come with by default. Object level security on every operating system object (every file, every directory, every registry key and value) etc. All with support for multiple users and groups and a rich concept of ownership. All with support for distributed account IDs out of the box.
Neither Linux nor FreeBSD support anything like this out of the box. MAC and ACLs come close but fail in many regards, and Ubuntu sure isn't SELinux. Even with those supports builtin they fail at providing their security tokens over the wire utterly. Neither OS at the kernel level has the concept of a security domain, though you can add some of what NT provides with LDAP or NIS.
NT6 has even more security not available within these either. Tying not only security IDs but also trust levels and trust level requirements to security objects (and programs, etc) in order to prevent the kind of ownage that happened to the MBA in this contest. IE7 out of the box on Vista, even if compromised, only has access to change a tiny portion of your user files as a default, out of the box configuration. Even a broken IE7 executing arbitrary code will find it virtually impossible to do more than screw your browser's cache.
Can you please stop calling crackers "hackers". Learn the distinction and stick to it.
Agreed. There are "Hackers", "Crackers", and "Phreakers". All different. Umm, am I forgeting any?
Datacide:
The vile plague known as script kiddies.
Oh yes, how could I have forgotten _their_ kind
Not a work safe site. Let us know in future.
it's over: mba and safari
http://dvlabs.tippingpoint.com/blog/2008/03/27/day-two-of-cansecwest-pwn-to-own---we-have-our-first-official-winner-with-picture
I'm not surprised to be honest. Everyone assumes that Macs are just the most secure thing around. Obviously, this is not the case. I'll bet Vista doesn't even get hacked during this contest. What will the Microsoft haters have to say then?
@Flashpoint
I think you mean the specialist tools may hackers use to defeat firewalls, and very clever thay are too! One guy who used to work for me on system security, had one that showed us how well an attempted hack on our servers was progressing we could literaly watch the combinations being run fascinating stuff.