Researcher hacks just-launched IE8

Computerworld - Just hours before Microsoft Corp. officially launched the final code for Internet Explorer 8, a German researcher yesterday hacked the browser during the PWN2OWN contest to win $5,000 and a Sony Viao laptop.

The researcher, a computer science student from Germany who would only give his first name, Nils, broke into the Sony within minutes by exploiting a previously unknown vulnerability in the new browser, said Terri Forslof, manager of security response at 3Com Corp.'s TippingPoint, the contest sponsor. The laptop was running what Forslof described as a "recent Microsoft internal build" of Windows 7.

Earlier today, Microsoft launched the final version of IE8 for Windows XP, Vista, Server 2003 and Server 2008. A final edition for Windows 7, however, has not been released to the public.

"It was important for Microsoft to see that bug right away," said Forslof today. "There are cases in product development where you might have a vulnerability so critical that [the vendor] makes the call to actually block the release. Microsoft needed to see that and evaluate that vulnerability."

TippingPoint purchases the vulnerabilities and the rights to the exploits when it awards cash prizes during PWN2OWN. At that point, it hands over the information to the vendor.

"This is the awesome part of PWN2OWN," said Forslof. "Microsoft got to stand there and watch it happen. They were right at ground zero." Within five minutes of Nils hacking IE8, TippingPoint had provided details and code to Mike Reavey, operations manager at the Microsoft Security Research Center (MSRC), who was at CanSecWest, the Vancouver, British Columbia, security conference that hosts PWN2OWN.