USB: Plug and Prey
Security researchers that work with Black Hat Security have found that USB, flash drives, or thumb drives have one flawing weakness. They can be exploited to infect computers with viruses, malware and spyware that is so insidious your anti-virus scanning software cannot detect it.
Our very own local, Jamie Forber, is the leader for Utah Data Recovery Company and says that he can recover lost data from anything and is concerned about what an infected USB drive can do to just one computer not to mention a hundred that get infected.
[one_fourth]
[/one_fourth][three_fourth_last][message type=”custom” width=”100%” start_color=”#D7D7D7″ end_color=”#919191″ border=”#999999″]
An infected USB drive can:
• Take over your computer
• Steal personal information
• Learn your IP address
• Take passwords and codes
• Do anything the hacker programs it to do
[/message]
Malicious hackers can bury hacking codes deep into the USB’s controller chip, which means your anti-virus software might not be able to pick it up.
Even if you take the time to delete everything from the USB drive and try to reformat it, the attack code can remain hidden long after, sitting there waiting for you to plug it in so that it can infect yet another computer without there being anything that you can do about it.
There is one good thing that comes from these USB drives, as long as you get them from the store and they are still in all of the plastic wrapping that they came in from the store then they will not have any virus on them.
Now if you find one on the street and are thinking about being a curious little cat and see what someone might have left on their USB drive, take a moment and decide if knowing someone’s secrets are worth the possibility of losing all control of your computer.
