"An Apple Mac was the first victim in a hacker shoot-out to determine which operating system is the most secure. A former US National Security Agency employee has trousered USD 10000 for breaking into a MacBook Air at CanSecWest security conference's PWN 2 OWN hacking contest. The MacBook was lined up against Linux and Vista PCs - which have so far remained uncracked. Nobody was able to hack into the systems on the first day of the contest when contestants were only allowed to attack the computers over the network, but yesterday the rules were relaxed so that attackers could direct contest organisers using the computers to do things like visit websites or open email messages. The MacBook was the only system to be hacked by Thursday. Miller didn't need much time. He quickly directed the contest's organisers to visit a website that contained his exploit code, which then allowed him to seize control of the computer, as about 20 onlookers cheered him on. He was the first contestant to attempt an attack on any of the systems." There is more bad news for Apple: "If you have Apple and compare it to Microsoft, the number of unpatched vulnerabilities are higher at Apple." Update: The contest is over. Vista got hacked using Adobe's Flash, Ubuntu was left standing.
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Member since:2005-07-24
I'm quite certain that in previous Ubuntu releases:
iptables -L -n
lists no rules at all. I've checked that after more than one default install.
http://www.linux.com/articles/55319
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuFirewall
http://tinyurl.com/377dbm
I did a bit of research, and it looks like they are adding something called "Uncomplicated Firewall" in Hardy, and perhaps now have some default iptables rules in place after the install.
Edited 2008-03-29 18:23 UTC
Member since:2005-07-06
when I reviewed Ubuntu 7.04 in 2007 (30 days with Ubuntu 7.04) I found that iptables had no rules setup whatsoever.
Please see here:-
http://linux-noob.com/review/ubuntu/7.04/part2.html#bittorrent
and I quote:-
"For a change, I decided to take it easy and not configure/fix/install anything, so I tested bittorent in Ubuntu, and guess what, it worked, first time, with no questions. But, that did lead me to check the firewall status which apparently is non-existant (and yes I'm aware of the Firestarter application):-
root@anyweb-laptop:~# iptables -L
Chain INPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source destination
Chain FORWARD (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source destination
Chain OUTPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source destination
Why are there no iptables rules defined at all?, seems strange in a modern day linux distro (much like the lack of default screensaver password) described earlier."
Edited 2008-03-30 20:34 UTC
Member since:
2005-11-12
It's not a new feature, it's just they must have modified the iptables better to suit. By default before Ubuntu used to respond to ICMP Echo Requests, in hardy is doesn't, I actually remember making a report about this to the Ubuntu devs.
Edited 2008-03-29 17:24 UTC