In a contest offering up to $20,000 to the first security expert able to hack into the latest version of Apple’s Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows Vista or Ubuntu Linux, a firm named Independent Security Evaluators took the prize by picking off Mac OS X:

Charlie Miller, principal analyst with Independent Security Evaluators and the researcher who found some significant flaws in Apple’s iPhone last summer, compromised the Apple MacBook Air in less than a minute. While he refrained from describing the flaw, SecurityFocus learned that the issue affected the Safari browser. Contest officials said that the MacBook Air was running the latest version of Mac OS X, version 10.5.2 or “Leopard.”

Miller — and two colleagues from ISE, Jake Honoroff and Mark Daniel — worked on the code for exploiting the security issue for about three weeks, he told SecurityFocus.

From: SecurityFocus.com.

The common perception that Apple’s products are safe from hackers has to be tempered: compared to the number of attacks against PCs, Apples computers are relatively safe. But that’s no reason for complacency. Even Mac users have to be careful.