{"id":187805,"date":"2016-11-17T07:35:10","date_gmt":"2016-11-17T05:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=187805"},"modified":"2016-11-17T07:37:13","modified_gmt":"2016-11-17T05:37:13","slug":"the-r70-device-that-can-hack-any-locked-computer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/security\/187805-the-r70-device-that-can-hack-any-locked-computer.html","title":{"rendered":"The R70 device that can hack any locked computer"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new $5 tool called PoisonTap allows an attacker to break into your password-protected computer, as reported by Motherboard<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

The device was created by\u00a0developer Samy Kamkar, and can access a locked PC as long as there is a browser open in the background.<\/p>\n

The PoisonTap is based on a\u00a0Raspberry Pi Zero, with an attacker only required to plug it in and wait – it is fully automated.<\/p>\n

“You plug it in, you leave it there for a minute, then you pull it out and you walk away. You don\u2019t even need to know how to do anything,”\u00a0Kamkar told Motherboard.<\/p>\n

One the device is plugged into a PC via a USB port,\u00a0it emulates a network device and attacks all outbound connections by pretending to be the “whole Internet”.<\/p>\n

This allows an attacker to\u00a0steal the victim\u2019s cookies, as long as they come from websites that don\u2019t use HTTPS web encryption.<\/p>\n

Security experts said that while the device may not cause huge concern, it was important to remember that allowing physical access to your PC is dangerous – even if it is locked.<\/p>\n