Keylogger onboard Apple keyboards?
Posted on August 3, 2009 by admin
Apple keyboard has 8 KB Flash memory and 256 bytes of RAM. Both of them enables keyboard firmware to run. This feature is also a possible weakness.
Semiaccurate website informs that Apple keyboard can be hacked with a previously hacked firmware, and enables to save a malware – i.e. keylogger, into its onboard memory. This author of that idea – K. Chen – did a proof of concept by installing a keylogger into the Apple keyboard memory.
This threat affects not only Apple external keyboards, but also internal ones mounted in MacBooks and MacBooks Pro. Those laptops communicate with their keyboards via USB interface. K. Chen presented also a keylogger, that uses 1 KB of free Flash memory onboard of Apple keyboard, that makes its program independent and invisible to the Mac OS X. HI is also of the opinion that Apple should update the firmware to patch it as soon as possible. However he adds that Apple ignored his advices many times.
More info on Apple keyboard keylogger: http://www.semiaccurate.com/2009/07/31/apple-keyboard-firmware-hack-demonstrated/
