Hacker Publishes Notorious Apple Wi-Fi Attack 114
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."
Link to the actual paper (Score:5, Informative)
Here's a link to the actual paper [uninformed.org].
And here's the important part:
Responsible disclosure (Score:4, Informative)
Re:NDA? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:So does this mean (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Really good sleuthing (Score:5, Informative)
Unfortunately, the opposing storm of FUD was just as bad, making it appear that the whole wireless vulnerability was a hoax, when in reality it was probably one of the more important general WiFi/driver vulnerabilities in recent memory. The choice of how to disclose was extremely poorly managed, and to make statements to the effect that you essentially wanted to stick it to Mac users when working under the guise of a supposedly professional and reputable security firm was what caused the problems. He embarrassed the hell out of SecureWorks by ending up with a firestorm of press that was massively bad PR for Apple.
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? Not Maynor's fault? No, not exactly, but some of his initial choices for handling are absolutely what led to the situation. I'm sure he had little idea this would occur and just got caught up in the world between security research and disclosure on one side, and corporations and mainstream media on the other.
Re:NDA? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This WASN'T an "Apple WiFi hack"! (Score:5, Informative)
My cynical suspicion is that he hadn't gotten the exploit to work on the MacBook stock WiFi card at the time, and rather than wait until he could and risk being "scooped", he tried to bluff.
Even more cynically, it's possible he had nothing on Apple at the time, later reverse-engineered his exploit from Apple's patch, and the exploit on the third-party card was something else entirely.
Re:An object lesson (Score:2, Informative)
Re:This WASN'T an "Apple WiFi hack"! (Score:1, Informative)
Doesn't the D620 use a Broadcom card? Didn't Jon Ellch release that code?
Seems like it was demostrated on other notebook models.
Re:Really good sleuthing (Score:2, Informative)
Apple denied the problem existed because - and I'm not saying this can be proven, but it's what was said at the time - Maynor couldn't show Apple engineers who were at the conference how the exploit worked with the MacBook's integrated wireless; certainly not in any practical way. The fix Apple ended up deploying was essentially, from what I can tell, by applying Maynor's theoretical claims about the vulnerability and then independently discovering the vulnerability in their own code. Some might say that is enough. I'd argue that when you are a security researcher working under the guise of responsible disclosure for a reputable enterprise security research firm and telling the Washington Post directly and explicitly that the MacBook was vulnerable as-is with the stock integrated wireless, today, you have an OBLIGATION to give the vendor the information to solve the problem.
I take very serious exception to the "threat" issue. It was insinuated and implied that Apple "threatened" them. There is NO PROOF that ever occurred, and, on top of that, threatened them how? Legally? Physically? I mean, come on. An Apple engineer saying, "Uh, I don't think you should frame your demo this way...it could be bad news," if something like that occurred, isn't a "threat". And if Apple substantively threatened them in any other way, there will be proof...a letter, an email, a voicemail, anything. If someone is going to claim that Apple threatened them in any meaningful way "off the record", I'm sorry, but that's bullshit.
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.
No, nothing is unbreakable and Macs are vulnerable just like anything else.
Don't whitewash Maynor (Score:5, Informative)
Maynor did everything he could to destroy his own credibility.
He misrepresented the nature of the vulnerability. Not because he was under an NDA, mind you, but because
[OSX was promoted as] being free of the viruses and malware that plague Windows,
It still is. Because it still is free of them. Not because it's "invulnerable" (people who talk about it being invulnerable - pro or con - shouldn't be trusted... and that includes you), but because it's a competently designed UNIX based OS that takes advantage of layered security. There's some aggravating design flaws that are bigger problems than a fixable bug in Wifi (yes, really), but the bottom line is that it's got a fundamentally more secure design than Windows in many areas that really matter, and THAT has a huge effect.
and even GNU/Linux doesn't have a reputation for being invulnerable
Wrong. Linux has been promoted as being a virus free haven for Windows users for at least as long as OS X has, and it's been pushed harder. And, yes, it ALSO has the advantage of a good traditional UNIX design.
But if Maynor REALLY wanted to show off, he'd have attacked OpenBSD.
and suddenly Maynor found there was a massive hole in that
So? People find holes in OSX regularly. And I mean ACTUAL holes unique to OS X, not holes shared by a lot of common devices. ACTUAL cases of the SAME KIND of hole (buffer overrun), even. This is not a "massive hole in OS X" at all, and if he hadn't turned around and (a) attacked Apple specifically, and (b) refused to disclose the bug itself (and I don't believe in an NDA that would have kept him from telling Apple about a buffer overflow in a Wifi driver), nobody would have said boo to him.
But he didn't act responsibly. He wanted to grandstand and he wanted to hurt Apple, specifically. I mean, he said he had a grudge against Apple right there on his web page. That's not responsible, and has nothing to do with any NDA. Even it's not actually lying and even arguably not honest, it sure ain't honorable.
So here we have someone who's acting irresponsibly, and implying he's being paid to find security holes he's not allowed to talk about (and he still hasn't explained that bit), and who's specifically targeting one company... what kind of reaction should he expect?
Correct me if I'm wrong.. (Score:3, Informative)
So what happened? The original story was a lie? The new story doesn't have their facts straight? IF this guy hacked an AirPort driver, like the NEWEST link claims, then this is a story. However, since the past year has been filled with nothing but discrediting proof that he hacked a third-party adapter, and his video shows him inserting a third party wireless USB adapter, then I would have to guess that the Apple AirPort wireless adapter was never, and still isn't, threatened by hacking.
Re:Mods on crack (Score:0, Informative)
The GP (GGP to this post) is at 0 as it deserves to be because it has no meaningful content, and accuses Apple of things that didn't occur, like ignoring a legitimate bug when the discoverer himself couldn't show Apple it worked with the MacBook integrated wireless at the conference, or of "threatening" them, when if there had been any meaningful "threat" (e.g., legal), there would be some proof or substantiation.
So if you're saying Apple will "lose you" as a customer, dickwad, because a post with actual correct information got modded up on slashdot, and isn't a "fanboi" (anyone who uses that term is the biggest fucking faggot ever) post in any sense of the term, then good riddance, cocksucker.
Apple's track record is contradictory to the lie.. (Score:5, Informative)
And i have a very very hard time believing that Maynor is telling the truth about that because Apple has an incredible track record on not only accepting information, but giving credit where credit is due to people that find problems and exploits
Here are 28 examples between 10.4.1-10.4.3 [blogspot.com] where Apple gave credit to security researchers, organizations, and individuals.
So, Maynor found something, acted very suspiciously, made lame comments, hid information, and blamed Apple for all of it.
He's a choad.