Hacker cracks fully patched Safari in two minutes flat

Hackers have made mincemeat of browser security

A hacking competition at the CanSecWest security conference in Canada has showcased a plethora of hacking techniques that are able to penetrate fully patched browsers.

Security researcher Charlie Miller won $5,000 (£3,440) and a MacBook Pro after he got through Apple's Safari browser in under two minutes.

"Charlie Miller got the luck of the draw, and had the first time slot for the browser competition. His target was Safari on Mac OS X," said Terri Forslof, from network security firm TippingPoint, which runs the competition.

"It was over within two minutes, and Charlie (coincidentally also last year's first winner of the day) is now the proud owner of yet another MacBook, and $5,000 from the Zero Day Initiative."

Another contestant, a master's student going under the name 'Nils', managed a similar trick with Safari, but also cracked Internet Explorer and Firefox using malware embedded in a web page.

He ended up winning $15,000 (£10,300) and three laptops for his efforts. He will also be attempting to perform a similar hack on Google's Chrome browser.

Attempts to crack mobile browsers, which comes with a prize of $10,000 (£6,880) per hack, have so far proved unsuccessful.

TippingPoint is also offering $5,000 prizes for the Most Interesting Browser Flaw, Most Interesting Mobile Device Flaw, and Best in Show.