Hijacking an Apple security discussion in 60 Seconds or Less

[tongodeon]

Earlier this month a company called SecureWorks announced at BlackHat that they could hack a MacBook remotely. I announced that their story seemed a little fishy because they used a third party card whose drivers did not exist for OSX, because they wouldn't demonstrate the hack in person, and because their excuses for their behavior didn't make

Comments

[tongodeon]

according to Maynor and Ellch it remains a fact that the default Macbook drivers are indeed exploitable.

They're not saying this anymore, which changes the story significantly.

Although I should publish my own retraction: I can't say for sure that they were using a USR805422 in the Mac. What I thought was a big white case on the card *might* be a white piece of paper wrapped around the card.

[tongodeon]

They claimed that they didn't demonstrate it with stock hardware because "Apple had leaned on Maynor and Ellch pretty hard not to make this an issue about the Mac drivers" - another claim that they're no longer making.

Like I said, the whole thing is bizarre. For example it's weird that they'd say "the same flaws were resident in the default Macbook wireless device drivers". If I'm not mistaken the "default MacBook wireless device" is the 802.11 hardware in the Core Duo chip. You're not going to put *that* in a USB card. Two different hardware manufacturers use the same exact drivers with the same exact bug? It makes no sense.

I'm tempted to make a parody video showing how I can use a hacked MacBook with a third party wireless card to get it to turn water into wine and cause Israel to invade Lebanon.

[haineux]

Daring Fireball has an excruciatingly detailed analysis of the timeline of events: http://daringfireball.net/2006/08/curious_case... )