Previously Unbreakable Chrome Hacked In Under Five Minutes At Annual Competition

Google takes another hit.

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Chrome has rightly earned a reputation as the unbreakable browser. Over the past four years, hackers have managed to exploit other browsers such as Safari and Internet Explorer at the annual security competition Pwn2Own, but Chrome has withstood any and all attacks—until this year, when Google got cocky and offered up to $1 million for hackers.

In fact, not only was Chrome the first browser to fall at this year’s competition, but also two separate hacks broke it open on the first day. The first group, Vupen Security, exploited a vulnerability in an Adobe Flash plugin, bypassing Chrome’s otherwise impenetrable security sandbox, the restricted perimeter inside which web content is isolated from the rest of the operating system. The attack took less than five minutes. Then, at the simultaneously held, Google-sponsored Pwnium competition, Russian college student Sergey Glazunov hacked a PC running Chrome to win $60,000. 

All in all, a humbling day for Google.

[via Ars Technica]

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