The only cure for new Apple malware is to trash your Mac

[space-time]

If your Mac is infected with malware as a result of a new vulnerability, security researchers say that there is no remedy. Even if you wipe your hard drive or reinstall OS X, your computer will be permanently infected, and the only cure is to throw away your hard drive.

In the past, Apple claimed that its Macs are not vulnerable to the known PC firmware attacks, but researchers claim that Thunderstrike 2 exposes MacBooks to similar vulnerabilities. Unlike the PC-based attacks, infections on a Mac "required physical presence to perform," said researcher Corey Kallenberg and his team in a statement about the Thunderstrike 2 session at Black Hat.

http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/...ac-1300955

[sekker]

If the hack re-flashes the ROM on the hard drive, then you will either 1) learn to re-flash the ROM or 2) get a new drive.

This vulnerability is with the shared lineage between Intel Macs and PCs. Not a Mac OS X vulnerability at all.

[space-time]

So not something to worry about, right? The title sounds much worse, I guess that's how they get the clicks...

[Black]

I used to subscribe to Trash your Mac but I think it merged with something else.

[N-OS X-tasy!]

Hoes does replacing one's HD equate to trashing one's Mac?

[M A V I C]

N-OS X-tasy! wrote:
Hoes does replacing one's HD equate to trashing one's Mac?

Maybe because they're glued together?

[jdc]

click bait

[Mr645]

But you need physical access to the Mac to install the firmware hack. It cannot infect via the web, e-mail or anything like that. Not a big threat in my book

[modelamac]

"...Trash your Mac", per your subject line, and "throw away your hard drive", per text are two completely different things. Why do you exaggerate like that?

space-time wrote:

If your Mac is infected with malware as a result of a new vulnerability, security researchers say that there is no remedy. Even if you wipe your hard drive or reinstall OS X, your computer will be permanently infected, and the only cure is to throw away your hard drive.

In the past, Apple claimed that its Macs are not vulnerable to the known PC firmware attacks, but researchers claim that Thunderstrike 2 exposes MacBooks to similar vulnerabilities. Unlike the PC-based attacks, infections on a Mac "required physical presence to perform," said researcher Corey Kallenberg and his team in a statement about the Thunderstrike 2 session at Black Hat.

http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/...ac-1300955

[Onamuji]

That's a very poorly constructed story and it needs clarification.

This is an EFI hack. It modifies the boot-instructions on your computer. Throwing away your hard drive won't fix it.

What tossing your entire drive will do -- if the exploit is indeed able to leverage option ROMs from hard drives to spread -- is prevent a portable hard drive from infecting other Macs.

You'd also have to throw away the computer and all of your Thunderbolt adapters, just to be sure that you've gotten all of the malware.

This article explains things a little more clearly.
http://www.macworld.com.au/news/macs-can...ng-139388/