Millions of PCs are Vulnerable Due to Thunderbolt Flaws
Hackers are targeting PCs with a technique called Thunderspy. To makes things worse, it only takes five minutes to hack. A warning was issued by security experts years ago that a personal computer or laptop left alone with a hacker should already be considered compromised.
A new method of attack was revealed in detail by Bjorn Ruytenberg, a researcher of the Eindhoven University of Technology. The technique can bypass the login screen, and even the hard disk encryption of sleeping or locked Linux PCs or Windows computers manufactured before 2019, to gain full access to the devices' data. It doesn't leave a trace and can be done in a few minutes. The attack does require physical access to the laptop or computer and requires opening the victim's laptops or PCs.
Thunderspy is a new way to carry out what is being called an Evil Maid Attack. This is a technique used by hackers to compromise a computer, and there's no easy software fix except only by disabling the Thunderbolt port. The attack involves opening up the system, attach a device to reprogram the firmware and closing things up again. This allows hackers full access and can be done in minutes.
Intel's Thunderbolt has been a security concern and has been considered a potential data exfiltration issue. It allows a more direct access to a computer's memory than other ports to provide faster speeds of data transfer to external device. Last year, a group of researchers revealed a series of flaws in the Thunderbolt components known as Thunderclap. One of these can easily breach a computer's security measures in just a short time by plugging a malicious device into the PC's thunderbolt port.