Tag Archives: usb

LitterDrifter USB Worm

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/11/litterdrifter-usb-worm.html

A new worm that spreads via USB sticks is infecting computers in Ukraine and beyond.

The group­—known by many names, including Gamaredon, Primitive Bear, ACTINIUM, Armageddon, and Shuckworm—has been active since at least 2014 and has been attributed to Russia’s Federal Security Service by the Security Service of Ukraine. Most Kremlin-backed groups take pains to fly under the radar; Gamaredon doesn’t care to. Its espionage-motivated campaigns targeting large numbers of Ukrainian organizations are easy to detect and tie back to the Russian government. The campaigns typically revolve around malware that aims to obtain as much information from targets as possible.

One of those tools is a computer worm designed to spread from computer to computer through USB drives. Tracked by researchers from Check Point Research as LitterDrifter, the malware is written in the Visual Basic Scripting language. LitterDrifter serves two purposes: to promiscuously spread from USB drive to USB drive and to permanently infect the devices that connect to such drives with malware that permanently communicates with Gamaredon-operated command-and-control servers.

FBI Advising People to Avoid Public Charging Stations

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/04/fbi-advising-people-to-avoid-public-charging-stations.html

The FBI is warning people against using public phone-charging stations, worrying that the combination power-data port can be used to inject malware onto the devices:

Avoid using free charging stations in airports, hotels, or shopping centers. Bad actors have figured out ways to use public USB ports to introduce malware and monitoring software onto devices that access these ports. Carry your own charger and USB cord and use an electrical outlet instead.

How much of a risk is this, really? I am unconvinced, although I do carry a USB condom for charging stations I find suspicious.

News article.

Exploding USB Sticks

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/03/exploding-usb-sticks.html

In case you don’t have enough to worry about, people are hiding explosives—actual ones—in USB sticks:

In the port city of Guayaquil, journalist Lenin Artieda of the Ecuavisa private TV station received an envelope containing a pen drive which exploded when he inserted it into a computer, his employer said.

Artieda sustained slight injuries to one hand and his face, said police official Xavier Chango. No one else was hurt.

Chango said the USB drive sent to Artieda could have been loaded with RDX, a military-type explosive.

More:

According to police official Xavier Chango, the flash drive that went off had a 5-volt explosive charge and is thought to have used RDX. Also known as T4, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (PDF), militaries, including the US’s, use RDX, which “can be used alone as a base charge for detonators or mixed with other explosives, such as TNT.” Chango said it comes in capsules measuring about 1 cm, but only half of it was activated in the drive that Artieda plugged in, which likely saved him some harm.

Reminds me of assassination by cell phone.

USB “Rubber Ducky” Attack Tool

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/08/usb-rubber-ducky-attack-tool.html

The USB Rubber Ducky is getting better and better.

Already, previous versions of the Rubber Ducky could carry out attacks like creating a fake Windows pop-up box to harvest a user’s login credentials or causing Chrome to send all saved passwords to an attacker’s webserver. But these attacks had to be carefully crafted for specific operating systems and software versions and lacked the flexibility to work across platforms.

The newest Rubber Ducky aims to overcome these limitations. It ships with a major upgrade to the DuckyScript programming language, which is used to create the commands that the Rubber Ducky will enter into a target machine. While previous versions were mostly limited to writing keystroke sequences, DuckyScript 3.0 is a feature-rich language, letting users write functions, store variables, and use logic flow controls (i.e., if this… then that).

That means, for example, the new Ducky can run a test to see if it’s plugged into a Windows or Mac machine and conditionally execute code appropriate to each one or disable itself if it has been connected to the wrong target. It also can generate pseudorandom numbers and use them to add variable delay between keystrokes for a more human effect.

Perhaps most impressively, it can steal data from a target machine by encoding it in binary format and transmitting it through the signals meant to tell a keyboard when the CapsLock or NumLock LEDs should light up. With this method, an attacker could plug it in for a few seconds, tell someone, “Sorry, I guess that USB drive is broken,” and take it back with all their passwords saved.