So, the results of the CanSecWest contest is in. For those of you who don't know, this is a contest held in Vancouver, BC. It involves three laptop computers, each running a fully patched copy of Windows Vista, Ubuntu Linux, and Mac OS X Leopard.

The prize: If the computers are hacked on the first day, $20,000 plus the laptop that was hacked. On the second day, $10,000, and on the third, $5,000. (and, each one, they get the computer they successfully hack).

Well, on the first day of the competition, none of the systems were compromised. The rules for the first day stated that the exploit had to be 100% remote with no interaction from the computer's user.

On the second day, it was changed so that the people attempting to exploit could "lead" users on the computers (who were contest admins) to malformed web pages and attempt a remote exploit that way. Guess what? The Mac was compromised within two minutes. At the end of the day, both the Windows and Linux machines were still uncompromised.

The competition hasn't ended yet, but as of this writing neither the windows or linux machines have been compromised.

There are two funny things about this: First, basically the same thing happened last year. The Mac was the first to be compromised (using a similar method, actually). The second: the reaction of the Mac fanboys to this. Seriously, read some of the comments over on slashdot:
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Never, EVER, underestimate the Mac fanboy ability for self delusion. They find almost any excuse to shift the blame from the fact that Mac's are not secure machines. They just don't get facts (in 2007, nearly twice the amount of exploits were found for OS X than Windows XP and Vista combined).

Please, don't interpret this post as me hating Macs. Frankly, I don't like them and I would never use one, but my dislike comes from their usability relative to what I want in a computer.

So next time someone tries throwing the "macs are more secure" thing in your face, you can pull this one out. I'm awaiting the results of the contest eagerly, but I'm pretty sure in the end Ubuntu will win. Linux's security is lightyears ahead of Windows, but we'll see what happens.

Cheers

Update:

Well, the contest is over. Linux won. No surprise to computer security specialists.