Video: Apple keyboard hack reveals how vulnerable Apple products can be
You and I may not be thinking about it as we cheerfully type away on our Mac keyboards but actually our Apple keyboards are highly vulnerable to tweaks and malicious attacks, one honest hacker recently revealed.
At this year’s Black Hat conference, K. Chen has revealed that a simple tweak can allow him to install keyloggers right into the very heart (firmware) of Apple keyboards. These keyboards like any computer hardware has to have at least some sort of memory, 8Kb of flash memory and 256 bytes of RAM to be precise. Using only a tiny amount of free memory, a key stroke logging client can be used to record and store potentially confidential information such as passwords. While it’s not yet possible to perform this hack remotely, the fact it occurs at the firmware level means no OS cleaner, anti-viral, anti-spyware, etc, will stand a chance at curing it. A fact that’s slightly worrying to MacBook owners who can’t simply swap to an uninfected keyboard.
Want to see it in action, check out the clip below…
[via OSnews]
This is a little worrying but regardless of what you do to the firmware, as long as someone has physical access to the machine then they can install a hardware keylogger which acts as an intermediary between the keyboard and it’s connecting cable.
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