Google’s Chrome and Mozilla’s Firefox are the two Web browsers to have survived attacks in the fifth annual Pwn2Own hacking contest. Google’s OS for mobile devices, Android, has also survived attacks so far.
The Pwn2Own is a hacking contest targeting Web browsers and mobile phones. The 2011 contest is taking place between March 9th until 11th in Vancouver, Canada.
In the week long contest, hackers managed to exploit vulnerabilities in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) and Apple’s Safari in the browsers category. Among smartphones, Apple’s iPhone 4 and RIM’s BlackBerry Torch 9800 failed to survive attacks.
Google’s Chrome has escaped unhacked at the contest for the third year in a row.
This year, both Apple and Google had released last minute patches on their Web browsers just days before the contest began. Microsoft chose not to alter any of its products.
Apple’s Safari was the first to fall with a weakness in the open-source browser rendering engine, Webkit. It was followed closely by Microsoft’s IE8 which was found to have three vulnerabilities.
RIM’s Blackberry fell to a multi-national team, while Apple’s iPhone 4 was brought down by an attack on the handset’s Safari browser. Hackers breached the security defences of Blackberry Torch 9800 running Blackberry 6 OS and stole a contact list and pictures stored on the device.
