In the biggest hacking content in China, almost all the popular browsers and operating systems fell to various hacks, including iOS 14, Windows 10, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Ubuntu and more. The competition called Tianfu Cup, is the biggest and most prestigious hacking contest in China, and during its third event, it saw many popular software get ‘pwned’.
Hacking competition sees iOS, Windows, Android, Chrome and others fall to exploits
As per ZDNet, the following browsers and operating systems were successfully hacked during the content:
- iOS 14 running on an iPhone 11 Pro
- Samsung Galaxy S20
- Windows 10 v2004 (April 2020 edition)
- Ubuntu
- Chrome
- Safari
- Firefox
- Adobe PDF Reader
- Docker (Community Edition)
- VMWare EXSi (hypervisor)
- QEMU (emulator & virtualizer)
- TP-Link and ASUS router firmware
A total of $1,210,000 were up for grabs for winners with successful exploits. $180,000 was given for two exploits each for Apple software, including iOS 14 and Safari. This was the highest amount up for grabs for platforms by any particular company. The next in line was VMWare EXSi with $180,00 prize, follow by Google Chrome with a $100,000 prize. A team from Chinese tech company Qihoo 360 won $744,500 out of the total prize money, leaving very little for the rest. The team also won the contest last year.
While browsers from all popular companies got hacked, a notable exception was Microsoft’s Edge. Edge, the non-Chromium version, and Office 365, were hacked last year at Tianfu Cup. The new Chromium based Edge was not hacked last year, and survived all hacking attempts this year too. Perhaps Apple’s Safari and Google’s Chrome teams could learn a thing or two from Microsoft when it comes to browser security. Microsoft’s most popular software, Windows 10 operating system, was in the list of successful exploits, while macOS was nowhere to be found.
Companies will be notified of the security exploits and will be releasing patches to fix them in their browsers and operating systems.
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