iPhone, Safari, IE8, Firefox all fall on day one of Pwn2Own

25.03.2010
Hackers took down 's iPhone and Safari browser, 's Internet Explore 8 (IE8) and Mozilla's Firefox within minutes at today's Pwn2Own contest, as expected.

The two-man team of Vincenzo Iozzo and Ralf-Philipp Weinmann exploited the iPhone in under five minutes, said a spokeswoman for 3Com TippingPoint, the company that sponsored the contest. The pair also walked away with $15,000 in cash, a record prize for the challenge, which is in its fourth year.

Iozzo, an Italian college student, works for Zynamics GmbH, the company headed by noted researcher Thomas Dullien, better known as Halvar Flake, while Weinmann is a post-doctoral researcher at the Laboratory of Algorithms, Cryptology and Security at the University of Luxembourg.

Weinmann is probably best known for being part of a three-man team that in 2007 demonstrated how to much faster than previously thought possible.

Charlie Miller, an analyst at Baltimore-based Independent Security Evaluators, brought down Safari on a MacBook Pro running for a three-peat at Pwn2Own.

Miller won prizes in both 2008 and 2009 by hacking a Mac; last year, Miller cracked Safari in . For his work today, Miller walked off with the notebook and $10,000 in cash.