Breaking News

EnGenius Launches Cloud-Lite Switch Series MSI Redefines Productivity and Versatility with Its New 144Hz Business Monitor Razer announces Kishi V3 Lineup PNY Unveils New DUO LINK V3 Flash Drive PlayStation Plus Game Catalog for June 2025

logo

  • Share Us
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
  • Home
  • Home
  • News
  • Reviews
  • Essays
  • Forum
  • Legacy
  • About
    • Submit News

    • Contact Us
    • Privacy

    • Promotion
    • Advertise

    • RSS Feed
    • Site Map

Search form

Hackers Demonstrate VM Escapes In Pwn2Own 2017 Hacking Contest

Hackers Demonstrate VM Escapes In Pwn2Own 2017 Hacking Contest

Enterprise & IT Mar 21,2017 0

At the final day of the Pwn2Own hacking contest , two teams of researchers chained multiple vulnerabilities together to escape from a guest OS running inside a VMware Workstation virtual machine.

Hypervisors like VMware Workstation are trying to create a barrier between the guest operating system that runs inside the virtual machine and the host OS where the hypervisor runs. As a result, VM escape exploits are highly prized in hacking contest. This year, the organizers of Pwn2Own, an annual hacking contest that runs during the CanSecWest conference in Vancouver, Canada, offered a prize of US$100,000 for breaking the isolation layer enforced by the VMware Workstation or Microsoft Hyper-V hypervisors.

Tencent Security's Team Sniper (Keen Lab and PC Mgr) used a three-bug chain to win the Virtual Machines Escapes (Guest-to-Host) category with a VMWare Workstation exploit. They used a Windows kernel UAF, a VMware info leak and an uninitialized VMware buffer to go guest-to-host. This garnered them $100,000 and 13 points for Master of Pwn.

Another team, from the security arm of Qihoo 360, achieved an even more impressive attack chain that started with a compromise of Microsoft Edge, moved to the Windows kernel, and then escaped from the VMware Workstation virtual machine. They were awarded $105,000 for their feat.

The "attackers" had to start from a non-privileged account on the guest OS, and the VMware Tools, a collection of drivers and utilities that enhance the virtual machine's functionality, were not installed.

Also on the third day, researcher Richard Zhu successfully hacked Microsoft Edge, complete with a system-level privilege escalation that earned him $55,000. It was fifth Microsoft Edge exploit demonstrated during the competition.

Apple's Safari fell four times, Mozilla Firefox once, but Google Chrome remained unscathed. Researchers also demonstrated two exploits for Adobe Reader and two for Flash Player, both with sandbox escapes. The contest also included many privilege escalation exploits on Windows and macOS.

Tags: Pwn2OwnHacking
Previous Post
ARM DynamIQ Cluster Technology Boosts AI Instruction Performwnce By 50x
Next Post
Adobe, Microsoft To Offer Solutions That Share Sales Data

Related Posts

  • MSI has been hacked, be warned about where you download files

  • Hackers gain access to PS5 Debug Menu and show decrypted PS5 firmware files

  • HP Threat Research Shows Attackers Exploiting Zero‐Day Vulnerability Before Enterprises Can Patch

  • EA Gets hacked - 780GB of data and sourcecode stolen

  • European Supercomputers Researching Covid-19 Report Hacking Attacks

  • Microsoft Offers You $100,000 If You Can Hack the Linux-based Azure Sphere

  • Zoom Users' Data have Been on Sale on Dark Web: report

  • Indonesia's Tokopedia Inverstigates Alleged Data Leak of 91 Million Users

Latest News

EnGenius Launches Cloud-Lite Switch Series
Enterprise & IT

EnGenius Launches Cloud-Lite Switch Series

MSI Redefines Productivity and Versatility with Its New 144Hz Business Monitor
Enterprise & IT

MSI Redefines Productivity and Versatility with Its New 144Hz Business Monitor

Razer announces Kishi V3 Lineup
Smartphones

Razer announces Kishi V3 Lineup

PNY Unveils New DUO LINK V3 Flash Drive
PC components

PNY Unveils New DUO LINK V3 Flash Drive

PlayStation Plus Game Catalog for June 2025
Gaming

PlayStation Plus Game Catalog for June 2025

Popular Reviews

be quiet! Light Loop 360mm

be quiet! Light Loop 360mm

be quiet! Dark Mount Keyboard

be quiet! Dark Mount Keyboard

Arctic Liquid Freezer III 420 - 360

Arctic Liquid Freezer III 420 - 360

be quiet! Light Mount Keyboard

be quiet! Light Mount Keyboard

Soundpeats Pop Clip

Soundpeats Pop Clip

Crucial T705 2TB NVME White

Crucial T705 2TB NVME White

be quiet! Light Base 600 LX

be quiet! Light Base 600 LX

Noctua NH-D15 G2

Noctua NH-D15 G2

Main menu

  • Home
  • News
  • Reviews
  • Essays
  • Forum
  • Legacy
  • About
    • Submit News

    • Contact Us
    • Privacy

    • Promotion
    • Advertise

    • RSS Feed
    • Site Map
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Contact Us
  • Promotional Opportunities @ CdrInfo.com
  • Advertise on out site
  • Submit your News to our site
  • RSS Feed