Harry Potter's spell to hack Macs

Who says magic does not exist? A spell of Harry Potter can hack Macs. Yes, in real life, not in the world of J. K. Rowling.

Let no one be alarmed, be Mac user will not put you in the spotlight of the Dementors and the dark lord will capture your soul. What is certain is that a spell of Harry Potter holds a clue to hack Macs although it is unlikely that you get to suffer in your computer. This key is found in the SMC of Apple computers.

The SMC, or System Management Controller is a chip that controls some of the low-level functions of the bitten apple computers since migrated to Intel processors, such as voltage regulation and battery management, in addition to temporarily store FileVault passwords. Precisely for managing low-level tasks, gain access to the SMC is to open a huge door by which to hack Macs.

What Harry Potter painting in? For he sees that any fan of the series belonged to the team developing the SMC. The NoSuchCon security conference has been exploited by Alex Ionescu, a security expert at a low level, to reveal that exists within the SCM code is activated when the word "SpecialisRevelio", a known spell of Harry Potter saga, precisely, was used in the creative world by JK Rowling to reveal hidden charms.

Let no one be alarmed. The method for accessing the SMC is much more complicated than just typing "SpecialisRevelio" into a terminal window. To hack Macs by this method are needed fairly deep knowledge and physical access to the computer in question. Therefore it is quite unlikely that anyone exploited this method to simply steal the pictures of kittens on the hard disk. Other topic Macs are used daily by world leaders such as Barack Obama.

What that serves to access the SMC? For no good for the owner of the target machine. For example, could be infected with malicious code to steal the keys to FileVault, or schedule a date and time when the computer is turned off and never turned back on, leaving it useless. As the SCM also controls fans, voltages or manages a laptop battery, hack Macs with this method can cause irreversible damage to the equipment.

The most effective way to defend against this attack, apart from not become world leaders and store vital information worth stealing, is to ensure that no one but us have access to our team, so we will not need to entrenéis your Patronus.