Macbook Pro 2016 Touchbar Is An Easy Victim For Exploits

Apple MacBook Pro 2016 has already been a part of many intense debates primarily questioning its selling price, due to its hardware specifications which can hardly be termed as a 'professional device'. The new laptops from Apple that begins at a starting price of US $2000 have a new and unique touch bar that is also integrated with function keys if at all, users need to make use of. That said, a recent software exploit reveals a major security issue in the new MacBooks from Apple.

An annual competition that takes place every year, attracts a huge chunk of hackers to exploit the various electronic hardware. This year too turned wasn't any surprising. A duo of hackers was successful in getting deep into the Macbook pro with a simple Safari exploit per reports from FOX News. The scenario unfolded at the Pwn2Own hacking contest where Samuel Groß and Niklas Baumstark, successfully exploited various logic bugs to get into the root level access on MacOS.

The loophole apparently lets them generate a custom message on the new touch bar introduced for the 2016 variants of the MacBook Pro. The contest offers winners a prize of over a million dollars that will also help in manufacturers and developers taking notes to fix faulty areas so that end users remain unaffected.

In other news, Tech Radar went into further details explaining about the flaws in the touch bar. The Pwn2Own event gathers several high-level hackers to uncover various vulnerabilities in numerous hardware. The main intention of the competition is to make sure both the hacker and the developer benefit mutually.

The duo of Samuel and Niklas managed to procure a prize US $28,000 for their efforts which turned out to be a partial success. Another team at the same event, a security research lab also were successful in making use of Apple's Safari Browser to gain deep access to the operating system to highlight various security flaws, and also bagged a price of US $35,000 for their works.