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from the no-such-thing-as-a-secure-computer dept.
Ars Technica reports:
Macs older than a year are vulnerable to exploits that remotely overwrite the firmware that boots up the machine, a feat that allows attackers to control vulnerable devices from the very first instruction.
The attack, according to a blog post published Friday by well-known OS X security researcher Pedro Vilaca, affects Macs shipped prior to the middle of 2014 that are allowed to go into sleep mode. He found a way to reflash a Mac's BIOS using functionality contained in userland, which is the part of an operating system where installed applications and drivers are executed. By exploiting vulnerabilities such as those regularly found in Safari and other Web browsers, attackers can install malicious firmware that survives hard drive reformatting and reinstallation of the operating system.
[Editor's Comment: The Ars Technica headline has been changed on their site to remove the word 'remote'. They note that "the hack involves use of a local exploit."]
Original Submission
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday June 02 2015, @07:40PM
Of course this isn't a virus. It is a vulnerability. Now one could write a virus that exploits that vulnerability, but what was reported was not such a virus, but the vulnerability. Whether there exists a virus using that vulnerability, we don't know.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ikanreed on Tuesday June 02 2015, @07:45PM
See, here comes captain rebranding now, to save you!
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday June 02 2015, @07:57PM
Rebranding? And who is saving whom from what?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.