As a Microsoft fanboy, I have to point out a recent result from a contest at a security conference. It was a three day contest where hackers were challenged to access a file on variety of systems including Microsoft Vista, Mac OSX Leopard, and Ubuntu Linux. Winners could win a Sony Vaio, Fujitsu U810 and the MacBook as prizes.
On the first day, the system was loaded the operating system alone and all three stood the test against the hackers and the file remained inaccessible.
On the second day, software that is typically packaged with the operating system was included on the systems. The first machine fell. And no, it wasn’t Vista. Vista and Ubuntu survived the second day, but it was the Mac that was hacked through an undisclosed (but probably widely know) security flaw in the Safari browser (in under two minutes, by the way).
On the last day where third party applications were installed on a new patched system, a vulnerability in Flash was utilized to compromise Vista. Ubuntu was left standing alone at the end of the contest.
TechBlog: Mac hacked, pwned and owned at security conference
April 8th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
You know what hacked me off the most about this whole thing, was that the security flaw in Flash that was used to hack the Vista machine was something that Adobe has known about for a while!! They were waiting to patch the problem in the next version of Flash.
Adobe apparently feels ok about keeping our systems open to hackers if it doesn’t meet their release schedule!
April 8th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
If I made a list of my least favorite companies in software, Adobe is definitely at the top of the list
April 9th, 2008 at 7:11 am
Just an FYI, you may need to look at your theme to make sure you didn’t get a 3rd party version. (The sponsored link at the bottom lends me to believe you did.) You may check the footer to see if it’s full of garbage characters, if so then it could be bad.
Re:
http://5thirtyone.com/archives/870
Your theme should only be downloaded from http://www.mangoorange.com/resources/i3theme. for instance.
Just a heads up…I had to deal with this not too long ago.
April 9th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
I downloaded the current theme (with new midnight blue palette) directly from mango orange. The link you are referring to is still in the footer so I’m guessing they want it there. I scanned through my previous theme and saw none of the garbage in the header or footer that is usually associated with these third party versions. Thanks for the heads up though. I never thought to pay attention to this but will from now on