Woowar

Category uklug
As was announced on Monday, by Warren and some of the other organisers, the UKLUG 2009 event is now officially open for registration for attendees, speakers and sponsors. This year it's in Edinburgh on 8th and 9th October and, as before, it's FREE at attend.

Having taken a look at the number of people who've already registered in the last 2 days, I can tell you it's filling up fast. So don't hang about - put those dates in your diary, and get over to the site and register. If you want to speak - and there is room for more speaking sessions at the moment - you'll need to register first, then you can log into your 'My Profile' page on the site and click 'Propose Session' to upload your session abstract. Similarly, if you want to sponsor - the more the merrier - again you'll need to register first and then log in an access the sponsorship information via your profile page.

Posted by Julian Woodward At 7:33 AM Location | Permalink | Comments (0)

Category apple
Or is it? I love my MacBookPro - it's far and away the best laptop I've ever owned. And, yes, you are stastically far less likely to be hit by virus/malware nastiness on a Mac than on Windows. But I don't subscribe to the "switch to a Mac and you'll never have any security trouble like Windows does" viewpoint.

And here's why:

Charlie Miller, the security researcher who hacked a Mac in two minutes last year at CanSecWest's PWN2OWN contest, improved his time today by breaking into another Mac in under 10 seconds.

Miller, a principal analyst at Independent Security Evaluators LLC, walked off with a $5,000 cash prize and the MacBook he hacked.

"I can't talk about the details of the vulnerability, but it was a Mac, fully patched, with Safari, fully patched," said Miller Wednesday not long after he had won the prize. "It probably took 5 or 10 seconds." He confirmed that he had researched and written the exploit before he arrived at the challenge.

The PWN2OWN rules stated that the researcher could provide a URL that hosted his or her exploit, replicating the common hacker tactic of enticing users to malicious sites where they are infected with malware. "I gave them the link, they clicked on it, and that was it," said Miller. "I did a few things to show that I had full control of the Mac."

So, yes, while OSX inherently IS more secure than Windows, that doesn't mean it's completely secure. Windows is a castle built on sand, and OSX is a castle built on rock. But no castle is impregnable.

Link: Computerworld Security: Researcher cracks Mac in 10 seconds...

Posted by Julian Woodward At 5:51 AM Location | Permalink | Comments (0)