Wirless Atheros Card Hack

Question

In the news, at the Blackhat 2006 security conference, someone demonstrated that computers with the Atheros wireless card (the one that comes built-in with my MacBook) are vulnerable to being hacked. Is there any way to protect my computer from this despite disabling my wireless card whenever I'm not using my computer?

Answer 1

The jury is still out on this one. The "hack" shown on a blog on the Washington Post website, purportedly showed a MacBook being "exploited" through a third party wireless card. While the so called researchers claimed that the built-in card is vulnerable, they never proved this in their demo.
The demo involved using a Dell laptop as the attacking vehicle. In the video, they claimed that the target machine did not need to be 'associated' with an Access Point (AP); it only needed to be searching for a wireless AP. But they then proceeded to use the MacBook to connect (using an open Terminal shell) to the Dell (the attacking PC) as an open AP!
They then demonstrated connecting to the shell, and creating and then deleting several files, one of which was named 'password', with content of "This is a secret password!" as a "demo" of further vulnerability - an unencrypted text file! None of these activities was anything that would have required either admin or root privileges, which they never claim to have elevated the shell to, anyway.
At no time did they prove or demonstrate that they had the ability to connect to the target computer:
- without using a created shell on the target
- without creating the connection from the target
- if the target was already connected to a wireless network
- while the target's network settings were in default mode
While it is possible that there may be some vulnerability in the third party drivers, the demo gave no indication that the drivers included in the Mac OS for the built-in Airport Extreme card are open to the same issue, in spite of a spurious claim that they "may be". In fact, the demo really did not prove that the third party drivers were vulnerable at all without an existing connection being present first.
My advice to anybody that is worried is to calm down and stop listening to FUD from reporters that have no technical expertise and "researchers" that from their comments in the article, have an axe to grind about Apple and its users.
As always, understand that wireless communication is inherently insecure, simply due to physics. Take reasonable precautions, such as turning your card off when not using wireless, turning your firewall on and not opening unnecessary ports. Use strong passwords and backup your stuff to a safe location. Turn on Filevault, as it will protect your data on a mobile computer.
Above all, step back, take a deep breath, and don't believe everything you read in the newspaper.
MDD dual 1 gig/Macbook 2.0 gig   Mac OS X (10.4.7)