WikiLeaks Reveals How the CIA Can Hack a Mac’s Hidden Code

If the CIA wants inside your Mac, it may not be enough that you so carefully avoided those infected email attachments or maliciously crafted web sites designed to plant spyware on your machine. Based on new documents in WikiLeaks’ ongoing release of CIA hacking secrets, if Langley’s hackers got physical access, they still could have infected the deepest, most hidden recesses of your laptop.

A new installment of leaks from WikiLeaks’ so-called Vault 7 cache of secret CIA documents published Thursday hints at the ultra-stealthy techniques the agency has used to spy on the laptops—and possibly smartphones—of Apple users when it can get its hands on their machines. The documents show how the CIA’s spyware infects corners of a computer’s code that antivirus scanners and even most forensic tools often miss entirely. Known as EFI, it’s firmware that loads the computer’s operating system, and exists outside of its hard-disk storage.