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USB Cables That Look Like Your Own—But Steal Info From Afar—Now For Sale
By Ell Ko, 03 Sep 2021
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Image via Kaspars Grinvalds / Shutterstock.com
This USB-Lightning cable by O. MG costs US$120. Before dismissing it as an overpriced Apple accessory, its game-changing abilities engineered by security researcher MG may change your opinion.
Built for “covert field-use,” this stealthy piece of hardware can track users’ movements and actions from over a mile away. Its features “enhance remote execution, stealth, [and] forensics evasion.”
But when put next to a regular Apple cable, they’re virtually indistinguishable.
Straight out of a spy movie, the otherwise inconspicuous charging cable has gone through some recent upgrades. It can store up to 650,000 keystrokes—the easiest way for a hacker to steal passwords and other sensitive information.
Utilizing built-inWi-Fi, that information can then be sent to a malicious party who could be located more than one mile away from the unsuspecting victim.
“It is packed with a web server, 802.11 radio, and way more memory and processing power than the type of cable you would want for just doing demos,” states the product description. “But the flexibility makes demos easy.”
According to VICE, which tested the cables out, these work by creating their own Wi-Fi hotspot, which the hacker can connect even at distance. A separate interface in a regular web browser lets the hacker start recording keystrokes as they’re being made by the user.
“We tested this out in downtown Oakland and were able to trigger payloads at over 1 mile,” MG is reported to claim.
It’s not just Lightning users that are breaking a sweat at this thought; the manufacturers have expanded their repertoire to cover USB-C, USB Micro, C-to-C… the list continues at length on the listing.
“There were people who said that Type C cables were safe from this type of implant because there isn't enough space. So, clearly, I had to prove that wrong. :),” MG appears to virtually beam at Motherboard in an online chat.
Perhaps to some relief, the pandemic has seen a large chip shortage hit the electronics industry, and O. MG cables haven’t been able to escape that. “Fractions of millimeters are important,” MG stresses in the chat. Some parts of the cable require “12+ months” to come back in stock.
Well, that’s another year or so of relative cybersecurity—or so we hope.
[via Boing Boing, image via Kaspars Grinvalds / Shutterstock.com]
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