Univ. of Wisc. Madison pulls the plug on OS X Security Challenge

What would it take to run a good security test on a mac server?

I just got mac mini, and if someone can tell me what to run, I will do it.

~DaS

Any sort of "hacking challenge" is a very, very poor security test. These are generally staged by the vendor as an example of how "secure" their product is. Compromised or not, this sort of test proves nothing at all, and provides no new security information.

Just because the Mac security community or I doesn't care about a meaningless security test doesn't mean we're blas頡bout security.

The site is now down completely. There is no server at all.

Excellent point Jer... it seems a couple of bloggers here have new Mac Minis. Step up to the plate TUAW. Surely you have the resources to run something like this.

http://badgerherald.com/news/2006/03/09/hacking_invite_troub.php

they make some good points, but wouldnt an academic network be the ideal place for things like this?

Given that the policy amongst a certain section of the Mac community towards any suggestion that the Mac might not be bullet proof is "blame the messenger", I think any sane site would simply avoid hosting the challenge. If you hosted it, and it got hacked, you'd then spend the next two weeks being blamed by idiots for the security hole, somehow.

It was up for 38 hours, according to an eariler summary posted on the site. It wasn't compromised in any way, but they were getting some severe DOS attacks which weren't successful, but may have influenced the decision to stop early.

"Are we really that blas頡bout security?"

How about the TUAW site/staff steps forward to address the challenge?

Oh, right, you guys run on windows... ":^)

"Are we really that blas頡bout security?"

In a word, yes.

I would imagine the powers that be don't really WANT to know how easy it would be to hack into it. Then they'd be forced to spend money to do something about it.