Blackhat News - Attack on Macs, infects firmware, bricks device

http://www.wired.com/2015/08/researchers-create-first-firmware-worm-attacks-macs/

It's blackhat season so there are lots of stories of new attack methods and tools.  This interesting one deals with an attack called Thunderstrike 2.  It compromises the firmware of thunderbolt devices and if the mac is rebooted with one of those infected devices attached, it corrupts the mac's firmware, meaning that its game over, especially if the update prevents the booting of os x.  then it wouldn't be possbile to boot the computer to reflash the firmware to a non infected version.  Details of this attack are to be presented on Aug 6 at Blackhat.

Submitted by Anonymous on