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USB Killer 2.0: a Harmless-Looking USB Stick That Destroys Computers
An anonymous reader writes: Plugging in random USB sticks in your computer has never been more dangerous, as a researcher who goes by the name Dark Purple has demonstrated his new device: USB Killer 2.0. When plugged into a computer, the deadly USB draws power from the device itself. With the help of a voltage converter the device's capacitors are charged to 220V, and it releases a negative electric surge into the USB port. This surge "fries" the USB port and, in the researcher's demonstration, the motherboard — perhaps not always after the first surge, but the malicious USB device repeats the process until no more power can be drawn.
Bonus points if it has some legitmate function before it's ready to strike: 802.11n adapter, etc.
Hypothetically of course ... Just make lots and lots of these. Get a Sharpie. Label each of them with things like TAX DOCUMENTS, ACCOUNT NUMBERS, and definitely lots of them labelled PORN COLLECTION. Drop them in hotels, restaurants, restrooms, subways, bus stops, just leave them all over town. Hilarity ensues!
For more bonus points, act shocked when you hear about the mysterious computer-killing USB drives. Say you don't believe anyone would do such a thing.
make lots and lots of these
Label each of them with things like TAX DOCUMENTS, ACCOUNT NUMBERS, and definitely lots of them labelled PORN COLLECTION
Drop them in hotels, restaurants, restrooms, subways, bus stops, just leave them all over town
Open a computer repair shop
Profit!!
Anti espionage: Just leave one around the office if you suspect the cleaning crew.
Russian roulette: Get 1 killer USB and five legits and a few friends... take turns plugging into your computers.
Search and seizure revenge: "I warned you".
Worked for Stuxnet and most other state sponsored cyber attacks. Just saying. We recently ran a "security awareness" month at the UNI I work for, giving away free flash keys to students who could show us their phone was secured at least with a password or pattern. They seemed surprised that no one bothered and most people told them they are too lazy to have to swype a pattern to unlock their phones. My suggestion was to custom build some pseudo malware, load it on those flash keys, or a set of flash keys, and leave them around campus. Nothing nefarious would happen to the user who did insert it other than an autorun popup informing them that we could have owned them right there if we wanted. The didn't go with my plan, I might still do it on my own. I'm nice like that, when I taught myself to crack into WEP and weak WPA access points that had the management page accessible over wifi and the default admin passwords set, I promptly change their SSID and passwords, letting them know they need to lock that shit down. I'm nice like that
We had an office thief once. He would take anything and it didnt really matter the value. Shitty old drives, ram, a customers computer we were configuring and other random crap.
I simply connected every line to Vcc on an old IDE hard disk and put it inside of a desk. The person who owned the desk I told them what was going on.
Maybe two days later one of the technicians is complaining that his IDE controller no longer works. He would later admit to some drug problems and a predilection for theft.
Label them in large letters 'BACKUPS', and then in small letters underneath 'always make backups!'.