The iPhone 4 and Blackberry Torch 9800 proved no match for hackers at the Pwn2Own contest yesterday (March 10).
The iPhone 4, running Apple’s iOS 4.2.1 operating system, was hacked in seconds by a two-person research team from the Baltimore-based firm Independent Security Evaluators, Computer World reported. (Apple’s updated iOS 4.3 was released too close to the contest to be eligible).
For successfully exploiting the iPhone, the researchers walked away with $15,000 from the contest sponsor HP Tipping Point.
Next up was the Blackberry, which fell at the hands of a three-person team made up of researchers from the U.S, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
No contestants stepped up to try hacking phones running the Android operating system (Samsung Nexus S) or the Dell Venue, which runs Windows 7.
On the opening day (March 9) of the Pwn2Own contest – an annual part of the CanSecWest conference in Vancouver, British Columbia – hackers brought down two of the four competing Web browsers : Apple’s Safari and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8.
No one has attempted to crack into Mozilla Firefox. Google Chrome also has seen no challengers, despite Google’s offer of $20,000 for anyone who cracks it.