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An Ex-NSA Hacker Who Has Organized the First-Ever Mac Security Conference (vice.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the first-of-its-kind dept.

Motherboard's Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai spoke with Patrick Wardle, the ex-NSA hacker who's organizing a security conference exclusively dedicated to Macs. Despite what Apple has famously promoted in the mid 2000s that Macs don't get "PC viruses," Mac computers do in fact have bugs, vulnerabilities, and even malware targeted at them. From the report: "People are peeking behind the curtain and realizing that the facade of Mac security is not always what it's cracked to be," Wardle told Motherboard in a phone interview. "Any company that designs software is going to have issues -- but Apple has perfected the art of a flawless public facade that masks many security issues." Wardle would know. After hacking primarily Windows computers at Fort Meade, for the last few years Wardle been finding several issues in MacOS, so many that he considers himself a "thorn" on Apple's side. But his conference is not an exercise in shaming or finger pointing, Wardle said he hopes to educate and teach people about Mac security, especially now that so many companies are using Macs as their corporate computers.

The conference is called Objective By the Sea, a wordplay on Objective-See, the name of Wardle's suite of free Mac security products (which is itself a wordplay on Apple's main programming language called Objective-C.) It will be held in Maui, Hawaii on November 3 and 4. The conference will be free for residents of Hawaii, and for patrons of Objective-See. That's why Wardle said he can't afford to pay for all speakers to attend, but he had no trouble finding people who wanted to participate. One group that doesn't want to come to Maui, at least for now, is Apple. Wardle said he reached out to the company, essentially offering it carte blanche to talk about whatever it wanted. But the company, so far, has not responded, according to him.

46 comments

  1. Yes of course, Macs use Intel processors.. by MindPrison · · Score: 1

    ...and you can basically use the same "god mode" hack as with any other "Pc".

    Check this video out for details, but..ahem, use responsibly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    --
    What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
    1. Re:Yes of course, Macs use Intel processors.. by JBMcB · · Score: 5, Informative

      ...and you can basically use the same "god mode" hack as with any other "Pc".

      Any other VIA C3 based PC, you mean. This hack was possible because the C3 has an embedded low power RISC core, probably for some kind of sleep state managed mode or something. With a "hidden," or possibly malformed instruction, you can wake it up and access protected memory by sending it instructions.

      The ostensible analog on the Mac side is the Intel MME. Only issue with that is the MME isn't really used on the Mac platform. It's included, but the Mac platform doesn't enable any of it's features (vPro management, mainly.)

      --
      My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
    2. Re:Yes of course, Macs use Intel processors.. by mstrash · · Score: 0

      Like the Nano-ITX board that was promised to us a decade and a half ago? Sad.

      Mac needs to give up and die already. It is 2018 and Apple still has fanbois? They are better off focusing their efforts on BeOS.

    3. Re:Yes of course, Macs use Intel processors.. by tlhIngan · · Score: 2

      Any other VIA C3 based PC, you mean. This hack was possible because the C3 has an embedded low power RISC core, probably for some kind of sleep state managed mode or something. With a "hidden," or possibly malformed instruction, you can wake it up and access protected memory by sending it instructions.

      The ostensible analog on the Mac side is the Intel MME. Only issue with that is the MME isn't really used on the Mac platform. It's included, but the Mac platform doesn't enable any of it's features (vPro management, mainly.)

      Not likely. Likely it's access to the real CPU core, not some hidden management processor.

      You have to remember that the Intel Pentium was probably the last of the x86 processors to actually run x86 code. The Pentium Pro (and Pentium II, same architecture) emulated x86 - they have an x86 front end that translates x86 instructions into an undocumented RISC core that executes them. (Intel calls these instructions "micro ops") The front end is split into several units - most of them are "simple crackers" that crack basic x86 instructions into micro ops directly, while there is a complex cracker that translates complex x86 instructions into many micro-ops. The simple crackers can emit one micro op each per clock (issuing several instructions), while the complex cracker can emit up to 2 micro-ops (a complex instruction may consist of many micro-ops).

      Likewise, AMD has been doing the same since at least the K5 series, and it's not a surprise if everyone else has as well.

      Via CPUs are typically highly integrated SoC type processors as well, so it wouldn't be a surprise if this functionality (which is documented in the processor user manual - isn't it fun spending months trying to reverse engineer something that was already in a document that a lookup could've saved much effort?) is used to provide emulations of common devices and operating modes.

      So like a VM, it can trap certain instruction calls and emulate them in software, except instead of emulating in x86, it does it natively.

    4. Re:Yes of course, Macs use Intel processors.. by Megol · · Score: 1

      No!
      VIA isn't Intel. The design of VIA C3 isn't the design of Intel processors nor AMD processors.

    5. Re:Yes of course, Macs use Intel processors.. by JBMcB · · Score: 1

      Not likely. Likely it's access to the real CPU core, not some hidden management processor.

      Yep you're right. The C3 is a RISC core with a microcoded x86 frontend. The "backdoor" was an undocumented routine left in to debug the x86 front-end.

      So there could theoretically be an undocumented opcode on Intel/AMD that gets you into the underlying execution units. I'm on the fence as to whether or not AMD/Intel would leave something like that in. The C3 situation seemed to be out of laziness, they just left the instructions open on the underlying silicon. AMD and Intel seem to hold their CPU firmware fairly close to the vest, and I'm not sure they'd allow for a debug instruction to get around their x86 front-end so you could analyze it.

      --
      My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
    6. Re: Yes of course, Macs use Intel processors.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Agreed. Apple have not been relevant for years. Despite popular belief the iPhone was really nothing special.

  2. Try iOS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not enough people use MacOS on the desktop or the enterprise for this to pick up any traction in the common conversation or mindset.

    Maybe try the same approach with iOS or Android to be more productive and effective on this front

    1. Re:Try iOS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly this. ios has more holes then Swiss cheese. He could make millions.

  3. Objective-C by Cmdln+Daco · · Score: 0

    Just for the record, a complete Objective-C toolchain was an installable package with Slackware 95, one of the Slackware distros of the Linux 1.x era. Objective C existed long before Steve Job's NeXT bought Apple.

    1. Re:Objective-C by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Very cool history info, thank!

      CAP === 'factors'

  4. Slashdot - headlines that by technosaurus · · Score: 1

    ...

  5. Re: Oh this should be good. by Cmdln+Daco · · Score: 0

    It's a nice shinier proprietary desktop for unix-alike fans. Better than KDE was back before it became fully open source*, but encouraging the same sort of nerds to use it.

    (*early linux-era KDE was dual licensed- if you wanted to sell binaries you could pay for that license)

  6. Objective-C? by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 1

    That hasn’t been Apple’s “main programming language” for some time now.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
    1. Re:Objective-C? by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      I'd be shocked if any significant percentage of Apple's immense codebase has been rewritten in Swift. So at least from the perspective of what language Apple uses to write its software, it almost certainly is Apple's main programming language. Well, that and C and C++.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

  7. Re:Oh this should be good. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Specifics would make your case a lot more than blathered antics about companies that may or may not exist, anonymously. I'm not going to argue Apple has good or even decent security, but you've demonstrated zero actual knowledge of any significant vulns / common pitfalls / security suggestions, just kind of bland toothless gripes. Of course there are gaping holes. Of course every OS has LONG KNOWN gaping holes with exceptions I can count on one hand. The point isn't n-th degree security, it's base level security for joe-asshole, the guy who shuts down by turning off the power strip. Comparing Apple to its OS-behemoth competitor Windows 10, Apple comes out way, way ahead in terms of a series of concerns for end users. Sure anyone can take an "Enterprise" version and wrap it in custom packages and lock it down, FOR MILLIONS OF DOLLARS, but Apple can get joe-asshole online with a modicum of effort and unless he goes looking for trouble in Warez or torrentz, chances are he's going to have zero real-world problems. Not so for jane-asshole, on her windows 10 box that can't even figure out how to display the start bar without an internet connection to fetch you an online (unsecured) ad from the local ad network, open by default. It's not close, go fuck yourself.

    Obviously if you want total security, you need educated users who want total security. So you're pissing on the wrong lemon tree to begin with, fake-analytica.

  8. Re: Want real security for your Mac?... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... hosts file "Protects against Spectre & Meltdown" ? Care to explain that one?

  9. What on earth? by JBMcB · · Score: 1

    Apple bought NeXT, not the other way around.

    Objective-C was NeXTStep's primary supported language, and NeXT is the one who implemented the compiler in gcc to begin with (in the late 80's) which is why it was in Slackware in 1995.

    --
    My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
    1. Re:What on earth? by Cmdln+Daco · · Score: 0

      In terms of the software culture predominant after the transaction, NeXT bought Apple. Apple had frittered away millions on a next gen Mac OS, and gotten nowhere.

    2. Re:What on earth? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In terms of the software culture predominant after the transaction, NeXT bought Apple. Apple had frittered away millions on a next gen Mac OS, and gotten nowhere.

      Correction:

      Han shot first.

      TFTFY

    3. Re:What on earth? by Cmdln+Daco · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure how you got that from the intellectual bankruptcy of Apple's OS developers that lead to them having to buy a new MacOS from an outside company.

  10. Best sources for Mac vulnerability information? by raymorris · · Score: 1

    At work we're expanding our support for Mac in our vulnerability scanner, over the next month or two. (Last month I wrote a bunch of code to find more Cisco vulnerabilities.)

    We have out usual sources of vulnerability data, but does anyone happen to know any the are particularly good for Mac specifically? We aim to cover every CVE ever issued.

    1. Re:Best sources for Mac vulnerability information? by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      Re "Mac specifically"
      The https://objective-see.com/inde... site has some in the blog, talks sections.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    2. Re:Best sources for Mac vulnerability information? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      check the US-cert or DISA CVE listings....

  11. Not just Unix-like, but actual certified UNIX by raymorris · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Coming from using Linux exclusively for 15 years, I was skeptical of the Mac sitting on my desk at my new job a few years ago. It turns out Mac isn't just Unix-like, it's actual certified real UNIX (tm). It's more UNIX than Linux or FreeBSD are.

  12. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 2

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  13. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  14. Hacker who organized... did what? by bidule · · Score: 1

    Someone spoke to hacker who organized...

    Could someone shoot that hanging title?

    --
    ID: the nose did not occur naturally, how would we wear glasses otherwise? (apologies to Voltaire)
    1. Re:Hacker who organized... did what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's Hacker Who.

  15. To register for the conference by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You have to enter your serial number.

  16. Re:Yeah, but it's insanely cumbersome. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    like those teenagr girls

    Admit it, you obviously think they're cute...

  17. Thanks. I'll look and maybe make a presentation by raymorris · · Score: 1

    Thanks. I'll look that over and maybe use some of the stuff their to make a presentation for my team.

    The job I really want is to be *teaching* security programmers while making very good money doing it. Nobody has that job advertised, so I'm creating it by doing weekly or twicd-weekly presentations for my time, with other people from the company also invited. Eventually people will figure out that whenever you need your security programmers trained in something, Ray does that well. :)

  18. RAY MORRIS BACKED A KKK LIE KNOWINGLY by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ray Morris decided to double down on a known KKK lie after it had been debunked, he's a nazi faggot. https://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12520486&cid=57184660

  19. Wasn't I: It was c6gunner by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See subject: his FAKEname on a post impersonating me https://linux.slashdot.org/com... & altering /.er's words.

    So I challenge c6gunner to show he did better work than mine & he CAN'T!

    c6gunner tried to mock me 1st https://linux.slashdot.org/com...

    YOU DEMAND PROOF? "I've yet to see you provide any evidence of that." by c6gunner on Monday March 15, 2010 @10:02PM (#31490942) ?

    I DEMAND IT OF YOU & YOU FAIL!

    * c6gunner = "Run, Forrest: RUN!!!

    c6gunner's LYING say I did a MacOS X one - I haven't yet & c6gunner's LYING impersonating me hosts work vs. Intel CPU issues (spectre/meltdown).

    APK

    P.S.=> You say hosts = shit here https://slashdot.org/comments.... ? /.ers & security pros SAY DIFFERENT: /.ers https://slashdot.org/comments.... https://slashdot.org/comments.... https://slashdot.org/comments.... https://slashdot.org/comments.... https://slashdot.org/comments.... https://slashdot.org/comments....

    SECURITY PROS https://slashdot.org/comments....

    REAL RESULTS w/ hosts vs. threats https://slashdot.org/comments....

    EAT YOUR WORDS

  20. c6gunner IMPERSONATING me again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See subject: his FAKEname on a post impersonating me https://linux.slashdot.org/com... & altering /.er's words.

    So I challenge c6gunner to show he did better work than mine & he CAN'T!

    c6gunner tried to mock me 1st https://linux.slashdot.org/com...

    YOU DEMAND PROOF? "I've yet to see you provide any evidence of that." by c6gunner on Monday March 15, 2010 @10:02PM (#31490942) ?

    I DEMAND IT OF YOU & YOU FAIL!

    * c6gunner = "Run, Forrest: RUN!!!

    c6gunner's LYING say I did a MacOS X one - I haven't yet & c6gunner's LYING impersonating me hosts work vs. Intel CPU issues (spectre/meltdown).

    APK

    P.S.=> You say hosts = shit here https://slashdot.org/comments.... ? /.ers & security pros SAY DIFFERENT: /.ers https://slashdot.org/comments.... https://slashdot.org/comments.... https://slashdot.org/comments.... https://slashdot.org/comments.... https://slashdot.org/comments.... https://slashdot.org/comments....

    SECURITY PROS https://slashdot.org/comments....

    REAL RESULTS w/ hosts vs. threats https://slashdot.org/comments....

    EAT YOUR WORDS

  21. BeauHD needs help writing complete sentences by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Seriously, does nobody care what BeauHD publishes on slashdot?