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> Even worse than USB is Firewire, which, if I am not mistaken, gives direct memory access to whatever device is connected.

Both FireWire and Thunderbolt offer DMA. There's publicly available tools that allow you to extract passwords, remove lock screens and find keys in the memory of running devices using either type of port.

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Here's a good article on vulnerabilities in Thunderbolt: http://www.breaknenter.org/2012/02/adventures-with-daisy-in-...

Turns out OS X 10.7 and later at least disable DMA access while the computer is locked (unless fast user switching is turned on).

Plus PCMCIA and ExpressCard, so most laptops are vulnerable out of the box[1], but there are some ways to mitigate those attacks. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMA_attack

[1]...if you plug untrusted devices into your expansion slots or leave your laptop unattended.

My favorite FireWire hack was when a guy took a friend's laptop, which did not even have FireWire. He plugged in a FW card at the boot prompt. The computer auto-installed the driver, and the attack proceeded...

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