news.techworld.com
In a post to the TippingPoint blog, Portnoy said that attempts to hack IE8 would be especially difficult because of Windows 7 security mechanisms such as DEP (Data Execution Prevention) and ASLR (Address Space Layout Randomisation). TippingPoint has also barred researchers from exploiting third-party plug-ins the first day of the three-day contest, making it tougher to carry out a successful attack.
Safari will fall the second day, Portnoy said. Last month, he had put his money on Safari to drop first, in part because he said Mac OS X 10.6, aka Snow Leopard, wasn't "on the same level as Windows 7" when it came to security. "I believe that Safari will indeed go down, just not on Day 1," Portnoy said today.
Google's Chrome will be the only browser to survive all three days of Pwn2Own, he continued, citing Chrome's "sandbox" security feature that separates application processes from other applications, the operating system and user data. Other researchers, including past Pwn2Own winner Dino Dai Zov, have tapped Chrome's sandboxing as the browser security standard to beat.
Sat Mar 20, 2010 10:33 am