Pwking fun at the security community since 2007.
Thursday, August 07, 2008
By Erica Naone
Last night, the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas
wrapped up for the day with the second annual Pwnie
Awards, where a group of judges gave out golden miniature ponies
with flowing pink hair to their selections for categories such as "lamest
vendor response," "epic FAIL," "most overhyped bug," and "best song." The Pwnie
Awards take their name from the slang verb "pwn," pronounced to rhyme with
"own," which, according to the Urban Dictionary, means "an act of dominating
an opponent."
For the most part, the awards were given and received with good
humor. Someone claiming to be from McAfee made a surprise acceptance of the Pwnie
for "lamest vendor response," awarded for McAfee's Hacker Safe certification
program. The Pwnie Award judges mocked the program for certifying as "hacker
safe" more than 60 websites that were later reported to be vulnerable to
cross-site scripting attacks, which can be used to gain unauthorized access to
sensitive data stored by the website's database.
According to the Pwnie Awards' website, McAfee responded to the
vulnerabilities by claiming that cross-site scripting attacks can't be used to
hack a server, although they may affect the end user or the client.
The Pwnie for "most overhyped bug" went to Dan Kaminsky, who discovered a flaw in the system that helps direct traffic
over the Internet. After Kaminsky held a press conference in July
about the flaw, without releasing details of its exact nature, the news
received massive media attention.
"You were in the New York
Times, the Wall Street Journal,"
one of the judges said to Kaminsky while announcing his win. "What weren't you in?"
Finally, the Pwnie for "best song" went to "Packin' the K!," a
hip-hop-style ditty advertising the services of Kaspersky labs. It can be viewed here. In spite of "Packin' the K!"'s win,
audience response seemed best for Dr. Raid's "Clockwork," which can be heard
through the same link. The audience protested when the Pwnie judges went to
turn off the clip, and when they played it longer, one audience member got up
to dance.
