Google bets $20,000 on Chrome
An announcement recently made by HP Tipping Point informed the public of the set dates for its Pwn2Own hacking competition. The event is take place from March 9th through to 11th this year in Vancouver. It was also reported that Google has increased the prize reward-previously $105,000-by $20,000 for any individual who manages to hack into the Chrome browser.
Hacking the browser would literally mean that cheap web hosting sites could penetrate Chrome. There are numerous other web browsers in line to try potential hackers who find their way to the event and try to win the cash prize with their hacking skills.
Those who find their way to this event should also expect various other interesting things including the release of the most recent candidates of Apple's Safari, Microsoft's Internet Explorer, and Mozilla's Firefox, running on 64-bit systems operating either under Windows 7 or Mac OS X Snow Leopard.
The standard laptops to be used by the contestants will be a Vaio, an Alienware m11x, or an Apple MacBook Air 13"". The participant hacker who manages to hack into Firefox, Internet Explorer, or Safari, will win their laptop of choice in addition to a cash prize of $15,000.
In order to hack the Chrome browser, one is expected to escape the Chrome sandbox with the help various vulnerabilities which are only available in Google-written code. The competitor who manages to do this successfully will win $20,000 as well as a Google CR-49 Chrome OS net book. Possibly, due to the fact that Chrome OS is still not complete, competitors will not be allowed to try and break into Chrome on a Chrome OS net book.
This event will also give participants the opportunity to hack into Mobile devices. This is expected to pull in a big crowd. Competitors will have the opportunity to select from various options. These would include hacking into the a Dell Venue Pro running Windows 7, an iPhone 4 running iOS, a Blackberry Torch 9800 running Blackberry 6 OS, or Nexus S running Android.
Compared to last year, there will be an additional event introduced into the program. This will be attacking cell phone baseband processors and web hosting platforms. The main function of baseband processors is to send and receive signals from cell towers. There is still a lot of research going on in this particular area mainly because of the accessibility of software called OpenBTS. It permits users to put up a cell tower with some not too computer equipment.
Hacking the browser would literally mean that cheap web hosting sites could penetrate Chrome. There are numerous other web browsers in line to try potential hackers who find their way to the event and try to win the cash prize with their hacking skills.
Those who find their way to this event should also expect various other interesting things including the release of the most recent candidates of Apple's Safari, Microsoft's Internet Explorer, and Mozilla's Firefox, running on 64-bit systems operating either under Windows 7 or Mac OS X Snow Leopard.
The standard laptops to be used by the contestants will be a Vaio, an Alienware m11x, or an Apple MacBook Air 13"". The participant hacker who manages to hack into Firefox, Internet Explorer, or Safari, will win their laptop of choice in addition to a cash prize of $15,000.
In order to hack the Chrome browser, one is expected to escape the Chrome sandbox with the help various vulnerabilities which are only available in Google-written code. The competitor who manages to do this successfully will win $20,000 as well as a Google CR-49 Chrome OS net book. Possibly, due to the fact that Chrome OS is still not complete, competitors will not be allowed to try and break into Chrome on a Chrome OS net book.
This event will also give participants the opportunity to hack into Mobile devices. This is expected to pull in a big crowd. Competitors will have the opportunity to select from various options. These would include hacking into the a Dell Venue Pro running Windows 7, an iPhone 4 running iOS, a Blackberry Torch 9800 running Blackberry 6 OS, or Nexus S running Android.
Compared to last year, there will be an additional event introduced into the program. This will be attacking cell phone baseband processors and web hosting platforms. The main function of baseband processors is to send and receive signals from cell towers. There is still a lot of research going on in this particular area mainly because of the accessibility of software called OpenBTS. It permits users to put up a cell tower with some not too computer equipment.
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