Why you should check your USB ports before using your PC
Before you start your PC, always check the USB ports.
The advice comes from Kaspersky Lab, following tests which found that publicly-available hardware and software can be used as powerful hacking tools.
Kaspersky built a Raspberry Pi-based USB device and configured it, without using malicious software, to covertly collect user authentication data from a simulated corporate network.
The device was plugged into a PC on the network via USB and captured 50 password hashes per hour.
The Raspberry Pi device was configured as an Ethernet adapter with certain configuration changes made in the OS running on the microcomputer.
Tools for packet sniffing, data collection, and processing were also installed, and Kaspersky set up a server to collect intercepted data.
“After that, the device was connected to the targeted machine and started to automatically feed the server with stolen credential data,” it said.
The company found that the target PC identified the Raspberry Pi device as a wired LAN adapter and assigned it a higher priority than other available network connections. The PC also gave it access to data exchange on the network.
“Researchers were able to collect authentication data sent by the attacked PC and its applications, as they tried to authenticate domain and remote servers. Researchers were also able to collect this data from other computers in the network segment.”
Kaspersky said this method of data interception was successfully reproduced on locked and unlocked computers running Windows and Mac OS.
“However, researchers were not able to reproduce the attack on Linux-based devices.”
The company advised users to always check if there are any extra USB devices sticking out of ports on their PCs.
“Avoid accepting flash drives from untrusted sources – this drive could in fact be a password interceptor,” it added.
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