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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: 2) by Arik on Sunday June 18 2017, @08:57PM (1 child)

    by Arik (4543) on Sunday June 18 2017, @08:57PM (#527585) Journal
    Really doesn't matter whether it's a phone or a flash drive or an e-cig. All these attacks are the same.

    They should be defeated at the software level, but of course for anyone who has to deal with windows... yeah. It's going to continue doing the most bone-headedly stupid thing it can possibly do (even if you dig into settings and explicitly override, there's a good chance you'll be ignored.)

    But there IS a simple and robust solution to the problem that will work even if you are stuck using a defective OS.

    http://www.instructables.com/id/USB-Condom/

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @06:40AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @06:40AM (#527775)

    Tell that to these bunch:

    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.