Ubuntu laptop last standing in hacking contest

Makes it through 3 days of attacks


31 March 2008 11:25 GMT / By Katie Scott

While the MacBook Air lasted just 2 minutes, a laptop from Ubuntu has withstood 3 days of hack attacks by some of the world's best at a conference in the US.

The Ubuntu machine was the only machine to hold out during the CanSecWest security conference, where hackers are pitted against each other to find undiscovered flaws in Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

The Leopard OS X 10.5.2 was first to fall, after a hacker gained access just 2 minutes into the second day of the contest.

According to online reports, the problem was a flaw in Safari.

On day 3 of the competition, the contestants were allowed to try and break into machines using any "popular" piece of software.

And it was Adobe's Flash that proved to be Vista's downfall.

Adobe has been notified of the flaw, while the hacker gets to keep the Fujitsu laptop running Vista Ultimate SP1 that he managed to break in to, as well as pocketing a $5000 prize.

But the Ubuntu 7.10 Linux machine flummoxed everyone.
Related
Full tags
Hardware, Ubuntu, Laptops, Apple MacBook Pro

share print story pdf email story

Recommended articles


Search

Loading

Follow


Best iPad 2 apps

We detail the best iPad 2 and iPad apps in the app store Which iPad app should you download?

Windows 8

All the features and details of the new Microsoft operating system explained What's new in Windows 8?

iPad 3 rumours

What comes next? We look at the possible features, leaks, images, specs and more

Pocket-lint poll

Q. Will you be buying a PS Vita?

Vote YES Vote NO

» LAST TIME
When asked Will Samsung be making a mistake if the Galaxy S III isn't shown at Mobile World Congress in February? 51% said yes and 49% said no