14 DAY TRIAL // The "MacBook Wireless Exploit" is the hot new thing in terms of security threats. Unfortunately, while demonstrating the vulnerability was intended to raise awareness and inform the public, the demonstration itself has led to little more than confusion, misinformation and flames. Not only is the video itself less than ideal in terms of information and clarity, but the original report for The Washington Post was even more biased, and continues to be the topic of debates.
Although this exploit has been demonstrated on a MacBook, a third party wireless card was used. This might leave some under the impression that Apple's machines are not affected, but that is not necessarily the case. Intel has already reported having discovered vulnerabilities in its drivers that would allow an attack like that demoed on the MacBook to take place. David Maynor and Jon Ellch say that the vulnerabilities are present across many models of wireless card and across all systems, and while this was not proven, there is no reason to assume that it is not true. Such a demonstration cannot be made on all builds of computers in existence, after all.
As for how users can protect themselves, again there is much debate. The demo video showed a Mac that was clearly configured to join any available network, which is not the default setting on Macs. However, Maynor and Ellch stated that the target machine does not have to connect to any network in order for the exploit to work; it simply has to be turned on. If what they are saying is true, no amount of configuration will protect the user, the only thing that will help would be to disable wireless entirely.
So far, there are still too many unanswered questions, and it will remain this way until there is an official response from Apple, which will likely not come until the issue is fixed.