Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Welcome to The New Coffee Room. We hope you enjoy your visit.


You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free.


Join our community!


If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
Don't plug it in!
Topic Started: Sep 22 2016, 05:28 AM (97 Views)
George K
Member Avatar
Finally
http://www.geek.com/news/malicious-usb-drives-are-being-dropped-into-aussie-mailboxes-1671666/

Quote:
 
If someone shoved their discarded chewing gum in your mailbox, you wouldn’t pick it up and start chewing would you? No, of course you wouldn’t. So if you happened to open your mailbox one day to find a USB flash drive had mysteriously appeared inside you wouldn’t scamper off to your computer and plug it in immediately to see what’s on it, right?

Anyone who cares even a little about security and privacy certainly wouldn’t. But there’s someone in Australia who knows that the average user is more than willing to let curiosity overrule common sense. That someone has been sticking flash drives in mailboxes, and guess what? They’re loaded with malicious code.

Based on the results of a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign experiment, we know that there’s a damn good chance that these drives are getting plugged in. When they scattered similar USB sticks around the University campus, almost every single one got picked up — and half of them got plugged in to a computer by the finder.
Posted Image
This isn’t a new tactic for infecting computers, but historically it’s more the type of thing that’s done when targeting machines that can’t be infected by, say, a phishing campaign or drive-by download. Still, when you know that half of the people who find a drive are going to plug it in, why not pass out a thousand or so and find out whether or not curiosity really will kill the cat?

Hopefully Australians are heeding the warning that the Victoria Police posted on their website. Don’t plug random flash drives in, people. Destroy them and recycle or dispose of them.
A guide to GKSR: Click

"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles.
- Klaus, 4/29/18
Online Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Copper
Member Avatar
Shortstop
Oldest trick in the book

Russians have been dropping flash drives in CIA parking lots forever.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_cyberattack_on_United_States

http://www.dailytech.com/USB+Stick+Led+to+Worst+Cyber+Attack+on+US+Military+Russia+Suspected/article19458.htm
Edited by Copper, Sep 22 2016, 05:39 AM.
The Confederate soldier was peculiar in that he was ever ready to fight, but never ready to submit to the routine duty and discipline of the camp or the march. The soldiers were determined to be soldiers after their own notions, and do their duty, for the love of it, as they thought best. Carlton McCarthy
Online Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Klaus
Member Avatar
HOLY CARP!!!
But isn't "Autoplay" from USB drives disabled (or requiring confirmation) by default these days? If so, then the trick shouldn't be very effective. Also, modern Windows does a better job if protecting its system kernel from user space programs, so even if some executable is started, it is not obvious whether it can "infect" a system.
Trifonov Fleisher Klaus Sokolov Zimmerman
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
John D'Oh
Member Avatar
MAMIL
You're talking to a guy who when drunk once trawled a parking lot for cigarette butts.

C'mon folks, live a little for once in your life. Seize the Doris Day!
What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?
Online Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
« Previous Topic · The New Coffee Room · Next Topic »
Add Reply