Just launched IE 8 successfully hacked

Barely hours after Microsoft's official launch of Internet Explorer 8, Nils, a computer science student from Germany managed to break into a Sony laptop running Windows 7 and IE8. The hack was achieved by exploiting a previously unknown vulnerability in IE8. As part of the PWN2OWN contest, Nils walked away with $5,000 and a Sony Vaio laptop as his prize for this feat.

Mike Reavey, operations manager at the Microsoft Security Research Center was at the security conference that hosted PWN2OWN, and he was promptly handed the details of the vulnerability by organizer TippingPoint. According to reports, Microsoft has already managed to reproduce the flaw in their labs, though it refuses to confirm the vulnerability beyond noting that the hacked version was not the same build of IE8 that Microsoft launched.

Underscoring the daunting task of building secure software, Nils went on to successfully exploit Safari and Firefox, netting him a total of $15,000 in cash and the laptop.

For more on this story:
- check out this article at Computerworld

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