F-Secure

Charlie Miller, the Pwn2Own contest winner for two years in a row, gives his take on Internet security. Guess what — your Mac OS is no less vulnerable than its Microsoft Windows counterpart.

Windows 7 or Snow Leopard, which of these two commercial OS will be harder to hack and why?

Windows 7 is slightly more difficult because it has full ASLR (address space layout randomization) and a smaller attack surface (for example, no Java or Flash by default). Windows used to be much harder because it had full ASLR and DEP (data execution prevention). But recently, a talk at Black Hat DC showed how to get around these protections in a browser in Windows.

No operating system and browser is immune to an attack. And, Flash is the bane of security (well, one of it anyway).

In your opinion, which is the safer combination OS+browser to use?

That's a good question. Chrome or IE8 on Windows 7 with no Flash installed. There probably isn't enough difference between the browsers to get worked up about. The main thing is not to install Flash!

The interview was conducted by Matteo Campofiorito at OneITSecurity. You can read the full version here.