TidBITS:
To take over a Mac, the attacker needs physical access. He then plugs in Thunderstrike-enabled hardware — a modified Thunderbolt-to-Ethernet dongle in the demo — and reboots the Mac, triggering the process that replaces the firmware with malicious code. That’s it.
While all Macs are technically vulnerable to the Thunderstrike attack, few readers face any immediate risk. The attack is highly targeted — someone needs both physical access to your Mac and time to reboot it and reinstall the firmware.
As always when it comes to Macs and security, Rich Mogull is my go-to guy. He writes well and clearly about the subject and I trust his opinion and advice.
I’m more concerned with the BlueTooth keyboard hacking proof of concepts from a few years ago, but I don’t think that ever went anywhere.
And if it did, enjoy seeing this post prior to me fixing all the spelling mistakes, hacker guy.
As security guys normally point out, if an attacker has physical access and much time at all, you’ve already lost.
This is why the keyboard hack from a few years ago bothers me more than this one. I don’t carry my keyboard with me wherever I go. 🙂
KeySweeper is a clever Bluetooth keyboard sniffing device: http://samy.pl/keysweeper/
The thing with Thunderstrike is that it is quick and more stealth, very difficult to detect and remove. So a few seconds of physical access and a forced reboot is all that is required (think “evil maid” scenario or airport security control) to “own” your computer. It is a bit different from the “stolen and eventually cracked” scenario where you are aware of the problem. Why trying to brute force your passwords and encryptions if you can do the job for the attacker?