Thunderbolt Rootkit Vector

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday December 23, 2014 @07:46AM from the like-USB-but-better dept.

New submitter Holi sends this news from PC World: Attackers can infect MacBook computers with highly persistent boot rootkits by connecting malicious devices to them over the Thunderbolt interface. The attack, dubbed Thunderstrike, installs malicious code in a MacBook's boot ROM (read-only memory), which is stored in a chip on the motherboard. It was devised by a security researcher named Trammell Hudson based on a two-year old vulnerability and will be demonstrated next week at the 31st Chaos Communication Congress in Hamburg.

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Re:uh - by design? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-23 08:03 · Score: 0, Funny

By your own admittance (and a touch of commonsense) PCIe is also unsafe by design as you're more likely to find an end user installing a new PCIe card than you are a thunderbolt device... USB as well.

But I know, I know... this is Apple... let's beat on them even though you've proven yourself why hardware of any ilk should be untrusted.
So if you get hit by this attack, have you been... by exabrial · 2014-12-23 08:47 · Score: 3, Funny

So if you get hit by this attack, have you been... Thunderstruck?? /me shows self to door