MacFormat Magazine
One of Apple's big talking points is that Macs don't get viruses and that they're relatively safe when compared to Windows PCs. Well, WikiLeaks would like you to reconsider that notion with more info about Vault 7. The organization's latest dump is a handful of documents from the Central Intelligence Agency that detail, among other things, how the agency can infect a MacBook Air during its boot cycle via a modified Thunderbolt-to-Ethernet adapter. With "Sonic Screwdriver," the CIA's monitoring tools are stored on the dongle and the machine can be infected even if it's password protected. Considering how dongle dependent the new MacBooks are, this sort of exploit becomes even more worrying.
Next on the nightmare list is a project called "Dark Matter" which is an umbrella for a handful of other spying initiatives. Perhaps most troubling is that these infections can persist even if you reinstall OSX. Then there's "NightSkies 1.2" which, as of 2008, was used to infect brand new iPhones.
"While CIA assets are sometimes used to physically infect systems in the custody of a target, it is likely that many CIA physical access attacks have infected the targeted organization's supply chain, including by interdicting mail orders and other shipments (opening, infecting and resending) leaving the United States or otherwise," WikiLeaks writes.
So, the CIA was intercepting iPhone orders, putting their malware on them and then making sure the devices got to their targets. WikiLeaks also notes that despite some of the comparatively ancient dates on the documents, it appears the CIA continues using and updating at least a few of them.
We've reached out to Apple for more information and will update this post should it arrive. In the case of the intercepted iPhones, there isn't much you can do. But for everything else, just remember: Don't leave your laptop unattended in the open, and do not plug anything into your computer that was given to you by a stranger.