From the “Hiding in a bunker waiting for the end of days” desk…

According to a blog on The Washington Post’s site, a nasty security bug in the MacBook’s wireless card driver allowed two hackers attending this week’s BlackHat Briefings security convention to hack into and take control of an Apple MacBook. This glitch is not unique to the MacBook; similar holes have been found in a coupe other Windows PC notebooks. The demonstrating duo, Jon Ellch and David Maynor “said they ultimately decided to run the demo against a Mac due to what Maynor called the ‘Mac user base aura of smugness on security,’” according to the article.

The vulnerability can not be blocked by firewalls or safeguarded against with antivirus software, since the driver, developed by Atheros, low-level code. Also, according to Ellch and Maynor, the machine may be vulnerable whenever the wireless card is on regardless of whether explicitly tell it to connect to a network, since many cards will connect automatically to an available open network (although by default Mac OS X will ask you if you want to connect to an open network first, giving the user at least some sort of first line of defense) . It is important to note that this vulnerability is not a vulnerability in Mac OS X, Windows XP, or any other operating system.

Luckily there have been no known exploits in the wild, and the companies in question have been contacted so a fix likely will be available soon.

UPDATE To clarify, this is not an issue with the Airport drivers, per se, but with a third-party card driver, as indicated in the video. However, in an interview with Brian Krebs of the Washington Post Maynor and Ellchclaim that the same flaw is found in Apple’s Airport drivers as well. The original post has been updated to include Maynor and Ellch’s video. Be sure to grab some popcorn and watch it.

(Also remember that these guys are professionals who make a living finding these things and not your average script kiddie.)

UPDATE (AGAIN) John Gruber of Daring Fireball deposits his two cents into the debate.