iPhone, BlackBerry tumble to Pwn2Own hackers

11.03.2011

Pwn2Own has one more day to run, but Vreugdenhil thought it unlikely anyone else would step forward to attempt exploits of the still-standing and smartphones. No one, for instance, has demonstrated an exploit that breaks a smartphone's "baseband" processor, the component used to send and receive radio signals.

In January, Weinmann -- one of the three in the team that hacked the BlackBerry Torch today -- showed an exploit of the baseband processor, which let him turn a smartphone into a .

Pwn2Own went to the trouble of building an isolation box that included a fake cellular base station so researchers could demo baseband exploits. But the box has gone unused.

"There's a tiny chance that someone will try tomorrow," Vreugdenhil said today. "But it's uncertain. I wouldn't even give it a 50-50 chance."

Even with some targets surviving unopposed by researchers, Vreugdenhil called Pwn2Own 2011 a success. "It's been a great two days," he said.