Home Policy Regulation Mac OS X easy to crack, says researcher
Get all your tech news delivered to your mail box five days a week
iTWire UPDATE - it's FREE!


"Writing exploits for Vista is hard work. Writing exploits for Mac is a lot of fun," he said, describing Mac OS X as one of the easiest operating systems to crack.

On top of that, Safari is regarded as one of the easiest browsers to hack.

Charlie Miller, the winner of the PWN2OWN contest at CanSecWest 2008, has predicted that Safari will be the first browser to fall in this year's contest.

(Miller and Dai Zovi are presenting on "Hacking Macs for Fun and Profit" at CanSecWest 2009 on March 19.)

It's not that Apple is unaware of these problems. Dai Zovi pointed out that the version of OS X running on iPhone is not vulnerable to the methods he used in his demonstration.

Things will be more difficult once Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard arrives, as its version of Address Space Layout Randomisation will be much more effective (making it far harder to determine the location of specific routines), and writable memory will be marked as non-executable.

The next SOURCE conference is scheduled for September 21-22 in Barcelona.

RECRUITMENT & RETENTION REPORT 2013

HIRE OR FIRE? BUY OR BUILD

2013 is well underway and Australian companies need to know whether they should invest in IT skills training or pay a premium for the people they need.

If you want to know which choices are being made in your sector, what skills are hard to find, which sectors intend to hire or fire and where the IT spend is going, this free report is must have.

GET YOUR REPORT NOW

Stephen Withers

joomla visitors

Stephen Withers is one of Australia¹s most experienced IT journalists, having begun his career in the days of 8-bit 'microcomputers'. He covers the gamut from gadgets to enterprise systems. In previous lives he has been an academic, a systems programmer, an IT support manager, and an online services manager. Stephen holds an honours degree in Management Sciences, a PhD in Industrial and Business Studies, and is a senior member of the Australian Computer Society.

Connect

http://bs.serving-sys.com/BurstingPipe/adServer.bs?cn=tf&c=19&mc=imp&pli=5460041&PluID=0&ord=[2000]&rtu=-1