Macbook Air Hacked in Under 2 Minutes

One of the things that Apple has always prided itself over and promoted in no uncertain terms, has been the so-called 'robust security' offered by its OSX operating system. However this supposition of Apple's took a huge beating on Thursday when a team of researchers from Independent Security Evaluators (ISE) managed to hack a MacBook Air in just two minutes using a previously unknown security vulnerability in Apple’s own safari browser.

The people who did the 'hack' were ISE security researchers - Charlie Miller, Jake Honoroff, and Mark Daniel – who were participating in the "PWN to OWN" competition at the CanSecWest security conference, in Vancouver, British Columbia.
In this competition there were 3 laptops, with different OS’s offered for being hacked into. These included an Apple Macbook Air running OS X 10.5.2, a Sony Vaio VGN-TZ37CN running Ubuntu 7.10 and a Fujitsu U810 running Vista Ultimate SP1. Anyone who could successfully hack or exploit these machines would win a $10,000 price from famous security company Tipping Point.
The first to go was of course the Macbook, followed by Windows Vista. Ubuntu stood strong despite repeated attempts.Source

Office 2008 for Mac Updated.....!!!!!

Microsoft yesterday announced the first update to its Office 2008 for Mac -- version 12.0.1. The company also released its Security Bulletin Summary for March 2008. Microsoft claims Office 2008 for Mac version 12.0.1 is aimed at improving security, stability, and performance of applications on machines that run Mac OS X version 10.4.9 (Tiger) or later. Importantly, it fixes vulnerabilities in Office 2008 for Mac that may allow hackers to overwrite the contents of your computer's memory with malicious code. Besides, with the update, Office Installer no longer grants restricted users' unauthorized access to Office 2008 for Mac program files.Meanwhile, four security bulletins, all of them tagged "critical", have been released in the month of March. First up, Microsoft Security Bulletin MS08-014 fixes vulnerabilities in Microsoft Excel that may allow remote code execution if a user opens a specially crafted Excel file. Second, Security Bulletin MS08-015 fixes the issue of vulnerability in Microsoft Outlook. Third, Security Bulletin MS08-016 fixes vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office that may allow a user's computer system to be taken over by a hacker. Last up, Security Bulletin MS08-017 which also prevents a user's computer system from being taken over by an attacker by fixing vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office Web Components.Source

A Competitor for Macbook Air

Apple's much-hyped "MacBook Air" may finally have found its competitor in Lenovo's ThinkPad X300 -- at least that's what analysts are saying.
Like the MacBook Air, the ThinkPad X300 boasts an ultra-thin frame though it weighs in at around 3.12 pounds, which is heavier than the very light-weight MacBook Air.
Both the Air and the ThinkPad X300 sport a 13.3-inches wide-screen and a full keyboard.
But the Air lacks: an optical drive, a network port, extra USB ports (it has only one), and removable battery. By contrast, the ThinkPad X300 is a typical road warrior -- what with a built-in DVD drive, three USB ports, and a removable battery.
MacBook Air users cannot upgrade memory on the device, and there's no integrated support for EV-DO or HSDPA. By comparison, the ThinkPad X300 comes with an Ethernet networking jack, and can be customized with a cell-phone modem or GPS.
There's yet another advantage for ThinkPad X300 users; they have the option to choose between either Windows XP or Windows Vista.
Meanwhile, Lenovo's ThinkPad X300 comes with a 64GB SSD (Solid State Drive) only, which might be the reason for the ramped up price; somewhere between $2,500 and $2,800. By comparison, Apple's MacBook Air, when equipped with a 80GB hard disk drive (HDD), carries a lower price tag, i.e. $1,800.
However, add to the MacBook Air a 64GB SSD, and it comes for not less than $3,000, which is higher than the price of the ThinkPad X300.
While the ThinkPad X300 has almost all the features required to beat the hell out of Apple's MacBook Air; there's one drawback -- its processor speed. The notebook includes a 1.2GHz Core 2 Duo processor. Whereas, the MacBook Air incorporates 1.6GHz and 1.8GHz Core 2 Duo processors.
All said, the X300's 12W processor is believed to be more power-efficient than the Air's 20W processors, in turn leading to greater battery life.
Citing from a Business Week report, the development of the ThinkPad X300 has taken nearly 20 months from the original concept to production. The mandate for the notebook is not so much to be a revenue spinner for Lenovo as it is to be a "halo" product for the company, somewhat like a MacBook Air is for Apple Computer.
In a statement, Lenovo Chairman, Yang Yuanqing said that they want to send out the message that if there's any company in the industry that can continuously develop the most inventive and best-quality products with efficiency, it has to be Lenovo. Besides, they also want to send firepower against arch rivals, HP and Dell. Of which, Dell is believed to feel not at all threatened by Lenovo, not at least in the US market.
There's no word yet on availability and pricing of this notebook. Info Courtesy: Techtree