New malware in Pen drives that hacks your computer!

[cuddaloreappu]

planning to have your private keys on a pen drive..

Think again..

http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/07/this-thumbdrive-hacks-computers-badusb-exploit-makes-devices-turn-evil/

[Sutters Mill]

I think people will be ok with their standard usb sticks but you could reformat them before use just to be on the safe side.

[dserrano5]

I think people will be ok with their standard usb sticks but you could reformat them before use just to be on the safe side.

Have you read the article? Formatting pendrives does no good.

[franky1]

I think people will be ok with their standard usb sticks but you could reformat them before use just to be on the safe side.

reformatting only affects the solid state memory part of the stick.. not the chip that stores the firmware.

basically think of it like reformatting a hard drive trying to remove a virus stored in your BIOS chip. and im pretty sure any hacker clever enough to reporgram the firmware, can also add a few lines of code to ignore firmware updates of the memory stick so that you cant just reformat the firmware.

as the article suggests, the hacker tool can just lie to you and pretend its been updated, keeping the hacker code, but changing only the ID of the firmware version to whatever update you try to give it.

plus its old news. authorities have been using it as far back as 2008
http://seattletimes.com/html/microsoft/2004379751_msftlaw29.html

[DjPxH]

Aren't secret agencies doing this all the time already? I hear about a story where the NSA? CIA? FBI? (can't quite remember) intercepted network switches and installed malware and spying devices on them! Totally insane thing to even think about!

[franky1]

Aren't secret agencies doing this all the time already? I hear about a story where the NSA? CIA? FBI? (can't quite remember) intercepted network switches and installed malware and spying devices on them! Totally insane thing to even think about!

yes read my link. microsoft and the authourities had a conference in 2006 that led to the invention in 2008, so THANK YOU MICROSOFT (sarcasm). but only now the 'consumers' are being informed and hackers(non authorities) are using it.

its like many things governments invent something first EG sat navigation, then 5 years later its then used by average joe

[Malin Keshar]

I know some people that had issues with virus by pendrives or mp player bought from Deal Extreme. But it was standart software virus, not

And also some talk about the chinese government enforcing the chinese hardware manufacturers to put backdoors/virus/wharever you woud like to call it in the hardware they sell, so any computer can be a tool of the chinese security agency.

Since the chinese produce most of the hardware, and are a dictadorship, I think they are bigger and more likely menace than the USA.

[oceans]

I don't think you will ever be safe no matter what you use. They have now found a way to attack pen drives and there will also be ways to attack your computer as well. It's best to ensure you are as safe as you can be or just not use the devices such as pen drives that can be targeted.

[Elwar]

On my cold storage computer I only burn CDs and read them on my networked machine.

No USB.

[CJYP]

To be absolutely clear, this isn't just pen drives, this is ANYTHING that connects to usb. Your mouse, your keyboard, your speakers (if those things are USB), your camera (if it's separate from your phone), your phone, your TI-84 graphing calculator - anything at all that connects to usb is vulnerable.

The only way to be safe is to not use USB at all, and maybe even to deactivate your usb ports in case someone else plugs something in. (Of course, that's not practical for normal computers. But for your offline bitcoin signing computer, it's the only choice)