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Hacker Publishes Notorious Apple Wi-Fi Attack
inkslinger77 writes "It's been about a year since David Maynor claimed to have found a way to take over a Mac using a flaw in a Wireless driver. He's now published his work for public scrutiny. Maynor had been under a nondisclosure agreement, which had previously prevented him from publishing details of the hack, but the NDA is over now and by going public with the information, Maynor hopes to help other Apple researchers with new documentation on things like Wi-Fi debugging and the Mac OS X kernel core dumping facility."
Yes, it affected Apple, too, but It was a general "hack" that affected WiFi chipsets on other platforms, including non-Apple hardware, Windows, and Linux!
That's the whole point of why people took issue with this, and it's still being perpetuated here!
The way it was presented, even if Maynor didn't intend it as such, especially in all of the press coverage - first IT press, then mainstream, CNN, hundreds of local papers via AP, you name it - was that it was an "Apple" WiFi hack only, and that anyone could easily and quickly completely take over your MacBook remotely.
The stories just got repeated and regurgitated over and over, even though it was a flaw that affected a lot more than Apple; indeed, the most interesting thing about the vulnerability was its universal nature and applications!
Also, in the initial reports, Maynor and Ellch hid the brand and vendor of external wireless adapter they used for the demo because of, according to them, "responsible disclosure", but then had no problems saying the exploit worked identically on a stock MacBook. So if it was important to hide the brand of the wireless adapter they used for the demo, why was it not equally important to hide the fact that the chipset in a MacBook was vulnerable? How is it fair for this to appear as an exploit affecting only Apple, appearing under headlines like "MacBook hacked in 30 seconds - remotely via wireless!"
Given that Mac users apparently needed to have "lit cigarettes stuck in their eyes" - and whether that was a joke or not, I don't see how that's professional coming from someone who is a "security researcher" presenting findings under the guise of what purports to be a professional security outfit - it appeared that the choice to use a MacBook for the demo and the ensuing firestorm of publicity was done exactly for that reason.
Would this have been news if they had used a Dell or Lenovo laptop running Windows or Linux, even if they also still said that this affected multiple platforms, including Mac OS X?
Microsoft will only credit you in a bulletin if you disclose a security flaw responsibly. Don't know about other corporations, but I would've thought MS were fairly significant.
I.O.U One Sig.
Yes, it did get a huge reaction.
That was AFTER it had already been picked up by the press, including mainstream non-IT press, under sensationalist headlines, and with no mention in the article that anything BUT Apple's new flagship portable was affected.
This was in the first two days before there was any rabid or insane reaction that anyone in any of these news outlets knew about (except for maybe Krebs at the Washington Post, who seemed determined to give this story legs at any cost).
The story ran under headlines like "New Mac laptops vulnerable" and "MacBook hacked in 30 seconds - wirelessly". The story ran not only in the traditional IT rags, which sometimes had the journalistic accuracy to also say the vulnerability could affect other hardware platforms and OSes just the same, but in national mainstream press outlets, including AP, which gets picked up by hundreds and hundreds of local news papers and other local media, and gets seen by millions more people than will ever see anything in Network World or The Register.
All at a time when more people than ever were considering a move to Mac OS X after the switch to Intel. Their only takeaway as they scanned the morning paper or caught a segment on the local morning news? That the "MacBook" can be "taken over" in "30 seconds", wirelessly, and all without you knowing. Hmm, might as well stay with Windows after all.
So yeah...as I already noted in another post, the reaction from the Mac crowd was even worse, FUDing the story into oblivion. However, the initial coverage wasn't because of that. At all. In any way, shape or form. It was because a security vulnerability affecting Macs is interpreted by many to be BIG NEWS, whether they're the kind of journalist (as a few in the IT press are) who want to trumpet negative Apple stories, or just simply some guy at AP who sees it as a unique story. NONE of the original coverage, which was the only substantive coverage and what had already caused the damage, was because of the Mac fanboy reaction. Rather, it was the opposite.
The MacBook was just chosen as a point of principle to show that Macs, too, can be vulnerable to such attacks.
But that's unpossible! Macs have cool ads, and they make fun of that PC guy who is always crashing with security problems.
So what, you say? It was bad press for Apple, and ONLY Apple. No other vendor of manufacturer got nailed by this in any substantive way. With Apple having such low marketshare, how is it fair for only Apple to be targeted in press articles about this?
Apple denied the problem existed, and threatened them - that's why this made the news. Compare this with the well-known similar flaw in some broadcom wireless chipsets (used by many vendors, including Dell & Linksys) that came out last fall. A fix came out, and the problem was solved.
How Apple handled the problem is the issue. Similar to Oracle claiming that their database is "unbreakable". Oracle is a solid product, but certainly not unreakable.
Look at the huge volume of frothing anti-Apple hate Maynor stirred up with this exploit (and the overreaction to his non-demonstration and insinuations that Apple's lawyers pressured him to shut up).
Anyone who creates a real self-propegating worm for OSX that infects end-users' machines would be revered as a god among men, or at least among Windows fanboys. The fact that a year later after Maynor's exploit and two years after the first smarmy "I'm a Mac" ad nobody has done it tell me there's more to OSX security than Windows having 90% market share.
0 1 - just my two bits
I see no evidence that they have fufilled any of the terms of the challenge as yet.
In any case, he set a time frame for taking the challenge that ended just over a year ago at this point.
No, this really doesn't earn them any apology from him.
"Stupid! Stupid stupid stupid stupid! I touched the hot wire right there - I'm an idiot!"
As opposed to..?
I don't know if you've been keeping up, but an awful lot of vulnerabilities are triggered by providing 'just data' to the target.