Quick! The bad guy\/super villain has left the room! Plug in a mysterious device thatll hack up their computer while an on-screen progress bar ticks forward to convey to the audience that things are working! <\/p>\n
Its a classic scene from basically every spy movie in history. In this case, however, that mystery device is real. <\/p>\n
Samy Kamkar developer of projects like that massive worm that conquered MySpace back in 2006, or SkyJack, the drone that hijacks other drones has released a video demonstrating the abilities of a particularly ridiculous necklace he sometimes wears around. <\/p>\n
Called USBdriveby, its a USB-powered microcontroller-on-a-chain, rigged to exploit the inherently awful security flaws lurking in your computers USB ports. In about 60 seconds, it can pull off a laundry list of nasty tricks: <\/p>\n
So in 30-60 seconds, this device hijacks your machine, disables many layers of security, cleans up the mess it makes, and opens a connection for remote manipulation even after the device has been removed. Thats kind of terrifying. <\/p>\n
While the video above focuses on OS X, the methods tapped here arent exclusive to Apples platform. Kamkar says everything shown so far is easily extendable to Windows or *nix. <\/p>\n
So what can you do to protect yourself from things like this? Not a whole lot, really thats why attacks like this and BadUSB are so freaky. A lot of these flaws are inherent to the way the USB protocol was designed and implemented across so many hundreds of millions of computers; short of filling your USB ports with cement or never, ever leaving your computers ports unattended while out and about, theres no magic fix. <\/p>\n
[via Hacker News] <\/p>\n
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Originally posted here: <\/p>\n
This Little USB Necklace Hacks Your Computer In No Time Flat<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Quick! The bad guy\/super villain has left the room! Plug in a mysterious device thatll hack up their computer while an on-screen progress bar ticks forward to convey to the audience that things are working! Its a classic scene from basically every spy movie in history. In this case, however, that mystery device is real. Continue reading