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PWN2OWN! Smart-phone and Web Browser
VANCOUVER, February 26 /PRNewswire/ -- - Hacking Contest Offers Security Researchers Cash and Prizes for Third Year For the third consecutive year, the popular hacking contest PWN2OWN will take place at Canada's premier security conference, CanSecWest. This year, the competitors are being challenged to set their targets on the comparative security of computer web browsers and smart-phones and a chance at winning US$10,000 and US$5,000 cash prizes, as well as a Sony VAIO P fresh from Japan and a new, loaded Apple Macbook. To highlight the increasing importance of smart-phone security as we begin to rely on them more, the mobile targets featured in this year's event include iPhone, Android, Symbian, RIM/BlackBerry and Windows Mobile. The other significant area of risk emerging in internet malware is new browser based exploits. Browser targets in this year's competition will include Internet Explorer 8, FireFox 3, Safari and Chrome. As in previous years, the contest will feature a progressively expanding attack surface spanning the three-day conference. Last year's contest pitted operating systems against one another and targeted a MacBook Air laptop and a Fujitsu notebook running Windows Vista, and a Sony VAIO running Linux. Apple vulnerability researcher Charlie Miller took home US$10,000 for cracking the MacBook Air in less than 2 minutes, and security consultant Shane Macaulay broke into the Fujitsu notebook to pick up a US$5000 reward. CanSecWest will take place from March 16th to 20th in Vancouver, British Columbia. The conference will feature presentations and training sessions by world leading experts in information security. Conference sponsors include: Juniper Networks, Microsoft, Intel, Leviathan, Splunk, Immunity, Adobe, TippingPoint, Core Security and IOActive. For further information: about the PWN2OWN contest, or CanSecWest, please contact Melissa Pelto at +1-778-558-8582 or email press@cansecwest.com or visit http://www.cansecwest.com
