'Hardened' PowerBook compromised

A security researcher at the recent ShmooCon hacking conference was taken by surprise when an unknown hacker compromised his PowerBook running Mac OS X, disabling the firewall and starting up a file server. The PowerBook had been 'hardened' to all known attacks at the time, and future analysis of the PowerBook revealed nothing about how the attacker managed to penetrate the system. "The machine was as hardened as best practices could suggest for anyone," the researcher said. The researcher believes that a previously unknown exploit caused the compromise, and with Apple's switch to Intel-based Macs, crackers will feel at home with the memory architecture and other elements below the application level. The successful attack underscores a number of trends that has already caused a shift in focus amidst security analysts and could result in more attacks on Mac OS X, according to SecurityFocus.

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