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posted by Fnord666 on Sunday June 18 2017, @11:43AM   Printer-friendly
from the another-USB-exploit dept.

While the most common methods used for hacking are DDoS attack, ransomware, phishing, virus, Trojan, keylogger, ClickJacking attacks, etc., hackers are now looking to modify e-cigarettes into tools to hack into computers:

To explain this, security researcher Ross Bevington showcased a presentation at BSides London that revealed how an e-cigarette could be used to attack a computer either by interfering with its network traffic or by deceiving the computer to make it believe that it was a keyboard.

[...] Many e-cigarettes can be charged over USB, either with a special cable, or by plugging the cigarette itself directly into a USB port on a computer, security researchers warn that your computer could actually be compromised by the simple act of charging a vape pen with just a few simple tweaks to the vaporizer.

[...] While e-cigarettes could be used to provide malicious payloads to machines, there is typically very little space available on them to host this code.

"This puts limitations on how elaborate a real attack could be made," said Mr Bevington.

"The WannaCry malware for instance was 4-5 MB, hundreds of times larger than the space on an e-cigarette. That being said, using something like an e-cigarette to download something larger from the Internet would be possible."

Previously: E-Cigarettes are Bad for the Health — Of Your Computer


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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 18 2017, @06:31PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 18 2017, @06:31PM (#527552)

    Could have malware embedded. Photo frames, cables, even the not so secret NSA USB device that's so small you can't see it and the port is still useable.

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