Beware this USB stick... its LETHAL!

[kiwi1960]

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11530179

Make sure of ANY device you plug into your computer....

Killer USB stick that destroys your computer in seconds

The USB stick can instantly fry any machine it is plugged into. Photo / habrahabr.ru

Russian hackers have created a USB stick that can instantly destroy any machine it is plugged into.

The USB stick created by a Russian security researcher known as 'Dark Purple' have uploaded a video to YouTube showing the USB in action.

In the video a researcher is seen plugging the USB stick into a working laptop, after a second or two the screen goes black and all attempts to get the laptop working again fail.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TidRpVWXBE

The USB destroys laptops by sending 220 volts through the signal lines of the USB interface, rendering anything it is plugging into useless.

The researcher claims that "he will live" and a new motherboard is on the way.

He thinks it is "extremely unlikely" that the hard disk was damaged, and so it should still be possible to access the data stored on the drive.

Dark Purple claim in their Russian-language blog post that the attack is not just limited to computers, but can used to incapacitate almost anything equipped with a USB drive.

Experts say the USB stick highlights the fact users should never plug unknown devices into their machine.

"USB Killer v2.0 - Yet another reason not to plug a USB stick of unknown origin into one of your computers," said Graham Cluley.

 

[kiwi1960]

The video doesn't work... sorry... can someone fix it? Thanks

 

[Katzenfreund]

Videos often don't work. But you can just give its URL which always does:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TidRpVWXBE

But I found that just posting the raw video URL (without coding) works. I try it below as an experiment, hoping I won't get a warning. Let me know what you see, and if it doesn't work I'll edit the post:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TidRpVWXBE

Now, it seems some people think they're clever and derive some king of fun by destroying whatever without good reason. This is by no means restricted to computers with the malicious virus developers and now this. Machines can be replaced, but monuments of ancient civilizations destroyed by religious fanatic can't. Killing wild life for fun must come under the same category. Even worse, they describe such perverted activities as "sport", while punishment is rare and grossly insufficient. I remember the case of a young hacker who destroyed innumerable machines causing incalculable damage, who was give social work as punishment.

Anyway, I don't think I've ever used anybody else's USB on my computer, but I suppose the same principle can be applied to CD's and DVD's, or even a virus having the effect can be developed, and then we've got a worry.

 

[bmark240]

Why anyone would buy from an unreliable source is beyond me.
There is a latin phrase which makes me suspicious of almost every transaction.
This is:CAVEAT EMPTOR which means LET THE BUYER BEWARE

 

[kiwi1960]

Agreed, Bmark... but anyone hellbent on destruction would give them away... that way, you get a 100% success rate...

either hand them out around the town they live it.... or to be safer... leave them in places they can be found... with words on them... like...

Porn
NSA Oct 2015
Swiss Account

and the list goes on... who wouldn't want to look at such things... human nature being what it is, common sense won't apply. Look at how many get scammed by Nigerians!

 

[Katzenfreund]

Everyone has his Achilles Heel, it's a matter of targeting it. With the right approach geared to an individual's inclinations, human engineering will inevitably succeed.

But I'm still waiting to be informed whether the video I posted above shows, as it was an experimental use of the raw URL.

 

[NavyRet]

Yes Katz. It shows and works as expected.I think something is wrong with the youtube tag and only someone familiar with coding can fix it (and that small group doesn't include moi).