the unhackable mac....

[JIMINATOR]

Thy ego deflated.... :thumbs:

On February 22, a Sweden-based Mac enthusiast set his Mac Mini as a server and invited hackers to break through the computer's security and gain root control, which would allow the attacker to take charge of the computer and delete files and folders or install applications.

Within hours of going live, the "rm-my-mac" competition was over. The challenger posted this message on his Web site: "This sucks. Six hours later this poor little Mac was owned and this page got defaced".

The hacker that won the challenge, who asked ZDNet Australia to identify him only as "gwerdna", said he gained root control of the Mac in less than 30 minutes.

"It probably took about 20 or 30 minutes to get root on the box. Initially I tried looking around the box for certain mis-configurations and other obvious things but then I decided to use some unpublished exploits -- of which there are a lot for Mac OS X," gwerdna told ZDNet Australia .


http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/security/soa/Mac_OS_X_hacked_in_less_than_30_minutes/0,2000061744,39241748,00.htm

[Sirc]

Was this a Motorola or Intel CPU?

[OUTLAWS WHOCARES]

Probally Intel

[ME BIGGD01]

Mac users have been saying it for years that their system is more secure and does not crash like a Micorosft OS. It always amazed me how one would compare either conisdering MS has I think 80-90% of the market. Same things is said with Linux. I do not care what anyone says, if it is software, it can be manipulated. I guess Apple will soon see what MS has been dealing with.

[JIMINATOR]

The processor type doesn't matter, the sourcecode is the same. the exploits are the same, just the payloads would be specific to that platform....

[Sirc]

The processor type doesn't matter, the sourcecode is the same. the exploits are the same, just the payloads would be specific to that platform....

No it's not. The low-level code is completely different. The instruction set is completely different. Motorola uses RISC, Intel doesn't. Granted, most of the vulnerablities occur in high level code, but still, the Mac OSX wasn't exactly platform independent. Shiat happens.






Damn! I pulled a frontal lobe again. Anyone have any Tylenol? *twitch*

[JIMINATOR]

uh, ok, "payload" being low level code. doh!
besides, all that is irrelevent if you can get shell access to root. :thumbs:

[Sirc]

uh, ok, "payload" being low level code. doh!
besides, all that is irrelevent if you can get shell access to root. :thumbs:

Well, yeah. Teh root. How was it ported? What language/tools did Apple use to port it?

I'm obviously not educated about all of this to really discuss it intelligently, but every hacker in the world has an Intel-based computer that they know inside-out. These guys eat Intel Binary cereal for breakfast. And now, tada! Apple has an Intel-based OS. Whee. The bored haxor kiddies must be having a blast.

[Sirc]

The point is - the haxor kiddies already have the Intel tools. Apple has just made their OS much easier to backwards-engineer. OSX isn't some magical OS guarded by hacker fairies. It just hasn't been a target before now. Now it's a target, and the tools have been available forever.

[JIMINATOR]

yeah, it may be hard to understand the portability of *nix. it isn't an intel tools type of thing. every *nix system comes with all tools necessary to compile everything for their platform, a lot of it being various C or C++ programs. A payload isn't much of a program, all it does is to tell the shell to run a script or give a command line, so the machine specific coding is VERY trivial. If you can get the shell to do this while in root mode, then the machine is totally compromised. Running the script doesn't in itself do anything. Gaining root access to a shell is what allows them to do everything else. anyway, the mac group likes to brag about how secure their systems are and how few viruses target them. it really is because of market share, or rather lack of it, that gives them their safety.

[ME BIGGD01]

Considering this was a mac mini, I would imaging it was using a IBM chip. Most of the mac's these days use IBM because motorola screwed up too many times. Regardless, I agree it has nomeaning if you can break into the shell of the os. Anyone who makes a contest to hack their computer is nuts. Thats like laying your wife naked on the lawn and saying hump my wife. There are too many people out there that get a kick from hacking as we get a kick out of gaming. I am sure that even aplliances will one day be hacked-=--wait, they are already. We live in a screwed up world:(

[Sirc]

Every time I try to participate in one of these threads, and make a fool out of myself, I become a little bit smarter. The more times this happens, the smarter I get.

Do you really want me to acquire enough knowledge to be dangerous? No.

So shut up and humor me. :P :D

[Die Hard]

I still can't believe your horns are fakes!

[Pure_Evil]

I laugh every time a mac user pounds their chest with the whole macs are more stable, better. If you are a basic user, they just suck. If you know how to tweak the OS, then they're solid enough. I'm shocked it took so long to hack it.