[NTLK] Fwd: mac-hax

Bad news - could anyone with any fact relating to unpublished
problems please send them on, and encourage others to as well, to
Apple, for the sake of us users...
Begin forwarded message:
______________________
Mac OS X hacked in less than 30 minutes

By Munir Kotadia
Story last modified Mon Mar 06 12:05:14 PST 2006

Gaining root access to a Mac is "easy pickings," according to an
individual who won an OS X hacking challenge last month by gaining
root control of a machine using an unpublished security vulnerability.

On Feb. 22, the Sweden-based Mac enthusiast set up 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 who 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
misconfigurations 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some unpublished exploits--of which there are a lot for Mac OS X,"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.

According to Gwerdna, the hacked Mac could have been better protected
<http://news.com.com/Is+Mac+OS+as+safe+as+ever/
2100-1002_3-6043353.html?tag=nl>,
but it would not have stopped him because he exploited a
vulnerability that has not yet been made public or patched by Apple
Computer.

"The rm-my-mac challenge was set up similar to how you would have a
Mac acting as a server--with various remote services running and
local access to users...There are various Mac OS X-hardening guides
out there that could have been used to harden the machine, however,
it wouldn't have stopped the vulnerability I used to gain access.
There are only limited things you can do with unknown and unpublished
vulnerabilities. One is to use additional hardening patches--good
examples for Linux are the PaX patch and the Grsecurity patches
<http://dw.com.com/redir?destUrl=http%3A%2F%
2Fpax.grsecurity.net&siteId=3&oId=/Is+Mac+OS+as+safe+as+ever/
2100-1002_3-6043353.html&ontId=1009&lop=nl.ex>.
They provide numerous hardening options on the system and implement
nonexecutable memory, which prevent memory-based corruption
exploits," Gwerdna said.

Gwerdna concluded that OS X contains "easy pickings" when it comes to
vulnerabilities that could allow hackers to break into Apple's
operating system.

"Mac OS X is easy pickings for bug finders. That said, it doesn't
have the market share to really interest most serious bug finders,"
Gwerdna added.

Apple's OS X has come under fire in recent weeks with the appearance
of two viruses and a number of serious security flaws
<http://news.com.com/Apple+patches+serious+Mac+OS+flaws/
2100-1002_3-6044945.html?tag=nl>,
which have since been patched by the Mac maker.

In January, security researcher Neil Archibald, who has already been
credited with finding numerous vulnerabilities in OS X, told ZDNet
Australia that he knows of numerous security vulnerabilities in
Apple's operating system that could be exploited by attackers.

"The only thing which has kept Mac OS X relatively safe up until now
is the fact that the market share is significantly lower than that of
Microsoft Windows or the more common Unix platforms...If this
situation was to change, in my opinion, things could be a lot worse
on Mac OS X than they currently are on other operating systems,"
Archibald said at the time.

An Apple Australia representative said on Monday that the company was
unable to comment at this stage. Representatives at Apple's
Cupertino, Calif., headquarters could not be reached for comment.

Munir Kotadia of ZDNet Australia reported from Sydney.

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