Adobe, Flash-The Pwn2Own-ing Continues

After Wednesday saw IE 10, Chrome, and Firefox all get hammered by exploits at this year's Pwn2Own contest, Thursday was Java's and Flash's turn to see if they could withstand the hacking. Both failed. Consequently, more money was handed out to the winners who were able to bypass their defenses. Not surprisingly, Java, which has been an exploit magnet as of late, was easier to exploit than Flash. Researchers from France-based Vupen Security, echoed this fact:

"It's more expensive to create a Flash exploit than a Java one,: said Vupen CEO Chaouki Bekrar. "Every time Adobe updates Flash, they're killing bugs and techniques and sandbox bypasses, and honestly Adobe is doing a great job making it Secure."
 
Perhaps, not great enough, however. Vupen themselves won $70,000 for penetrating Flash Player defenses and George Hotz, who hacked the PS3 in 2010, became the first person to successfully bypass the Adobe Reader sandbox protection. He too was rewarded $70,000.

 
Day two of Pwn2Own continues to go to show that exploits continue to evolve just as the 'exploited' continue to patch up their programs. That's why I can't say enough times that users not only need to be wary of emergency updates, but more importantly, protect their computers with always-up-to-date internet security to make sure they're not caught off guard next time an exploit hits.

 

(Source: VentureBeat)