Samy Kamkar — developer of projects like that massive worm that conquered MySpace back in 2006, or SkyJack, the drone that hijacks other drones — has released a video demonstrating the abilities of a particularly ridiculous “necklace” he sometimes wears around.
Called USBdriveby, it’s a USB-powered microcontroller-on-a-chain, rigged to exploit the inherently awful security flaws lurking in your computer’s USB ports. In about 60 seconds, it can pull off a laundry list of nasty tricks:
So in 30-60 seconds, this device hijacks your machine, disables many layers of security, cleans up the mess it makes, and opens a connection for remote manipulation even after the device has been removed. That’s… kind of terrifying.
While the video above focuses on OS X, the methods tapped here aren’t exclusive to Apple’s platform. Kamkar says everything shown so far is “easily extendable to Windows or *nix.”
The worse part? You can’t do anything about it. A lot of these flaws are inherent to the way the USB protocol was designed and implemented across so many hundreds of millions of computers; short of filling your USB ports with cement or never, ever leaving your computer’s ports unattended while out and about, there’s no magic fix. Just check for the neck chains.
[via Hacker News]