# Forum in English  > News  > Computer security news  >  Researcher hacks just-launched IE8

## SDA

Cracks Microsoft's new browser hours before release; also hacks Safari, Firefox
March 19, 2009 (Computerworld) Just hours before Microsoft Corp. officially launched the final code for Internet Explorer 8, a German researcher yesterday hacked the browser during the PWN2OWN contest to win $5,000 and a Sony Viao laptop.

The researcher, a computer science student from Germany who would only give his first name, Nils, broke into the Sony within minutes by exploiting a previously unknown vulnerability in the new browser, said Terri Forslof, manager of security response at 3Com Corp.'s TippingPoint, the contest sponsor. The laptop was running what Forslof described as a "recent Microsoft internal build" of Windows 7.

http://www.computerworld.com/action/...7&pageNumber=1

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