You know that feeling you get when you buy a Mac? They found a name for it, it's called
permanent backdooring.
He found a way to reflash a Mac's BIOS using functionality contained in userland, which is the part of an operating system where installed applications and drivers are executed. By exploiting vulnerabilities such as those regularly found in Safari and other Web browsers, attackers can install malicious firmware that survives hard drive reformatting and reinstallation of the operating system.