Apple, Mac, MacOS, iOS4, iPad, iPhone and (in)security...

One door closes, another one opens

Apple introduced security patches in OS X 10.10.2, released at the end of January 2015, in an attempt to shut off the Thunderstrike hole.

Unfortunately, it seems that Apple didn't close all the doors.

Hudson, together with two other researchers named Xeno Kovah and Corey Kallenberg, have figured out Thunderstrike 2, which they'll be showing off at Black Hat USA 2015 and Def Con, two security events taking place back-to-back this week in Las Vegas.

They've actually gone one step further with Thunderstrike 2.

As well as using a booby-trapped Thunderbolt Option ROM to modify your Mac's firmware, they've figured out how to include a virus in the modified firmware code.

Their virus will, in turn, attempt to modify the firmware of Thunderbolt devices you insert from then on, thus turning them into carriers of the firmware booby trap, too.

With a touch of techie humour, they've dubbed their firmware-borne virus a "firmworm".

Thunderbolt devices, of course, include removable hard disks...

...in an echo of Stuxnet, the virus that used USB devices to travel between computers on physically separate networks.

Unfortunately, while USB disks carrying Stuxnet could be purged altogether by overwriting them from inside your operating system, infectious Thunderbolt devices can't be cleaned up, or even detected, in that way.

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