On day 1 of Pwn2Own we saw both Safari and IE8 fall victim to attacks by hackers. Today, iPhone 4 and the Blackberry Torch 9800 followed a similar fate. Pwn2Own is an annual security competition that allows hackers to win systems they successfully hack, in turn they provide valuable feedback to the company’s security teams.
Apple’s iPhone was hacked by Charlie Miller and Dion Blazakis, two Pwn2Own veterans. Miller has been very successful at the event, successfully hacking both Apple’s laptops and phones every year in the last three.
BlackBerry OS, running on a BlackBerry Torch 9800, was hacked by a team made up of Vincenzo Iozzo, Willem Pinckaers, and Ralf Philipp Weinmann. A few of the team members were also veterans having successfully hacked the iPhone in 2010. Simply by visiting a special Web page made by the team, they were able to compromise the Blackberry.
We still have yet to see Chrome or Firefox bite the dust. It may only be a matter of time.