What do you know -- you shouldn't plug a USB drive into your computer without knowing where it came from

Don't plug strange USB sticks into your computers. Don't do it. A pair of hackers just made public the code for super scary malware that takes advantage of a fundamental flaw in USB firmware. They didn't do this to be mean, but you can be sure some evil hackers will use it to be mean.

The malware in question is very similar to the so-called BadUSB attack we saw a couple of months ago. Security researchers Karsten Nohl and Jakob Lell basically reversed engineered USB firmware so that they could create virtually undetectable malware that can't be patched. In brief, BadUSB can "be installed on a USB device to completely take over a PC, invisibly alter files installed from the memory stick, or even redirect the user's internet traffic."

Given the tremendous danger of this kind of thing getting out into the wild—literally, any computer with a USB port would be an easy target—Nohl and Lell opted to keep the code a secret. But now, researchers Adam Caudill and Brandon Wilson have more or less copied the BadUSB attack and uploaded the code to GitHub for all to download. This sounds very scary, but it might actually be a good thing.

Cass wrote:no sheeyet........


but I am still waiting for that nice prince in Africa to send me the money he is trying to get out......I noticed my credit card has been debited.....many times in fact.......he seemed so nice from his emails.....

Fuzzy Zack wrote:A USB stick is like a penis. You should know where it's been before sticking it in. You never know what virus it's carrying.