Leaving USB drives around is a tried and tested method for hackers to gain access to computer systems. For example, if you find a USB drive lying around, don’t plug it into your computer because it may be both a planted USB killer or have malware on it. You also need to refrain from putting unknown USB devices into your computer.
Keeping the computer away from unauthorized users is part of the defense, but it’s not enough. If people you don’t know can walk by and plug stuff into your computer while you’re away, that’s an invitation for trouble. That means the physical security around your computer has to be adequate. Therefore, the best protection is to prevent one of these devices from ever being inserted into your computer. As mentioned above, the latest generation of kill sticks makes short work of the newest safety measures within USB ports. You will want to protect your computer from falling victim to a USB kill stick.
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How To Protect Yourself Against USB Killers Not only will they permanently wipe the drive, but you can still reuse it. If you’re thinking of a way to destroy data permanently, have a look at tools that can permanently destroy your data. However, a USB killer wouldn’t be a reliable way to destroy data, especially in the case of mechanical hard drives, where data can still be recovered from the drive by a specialist.
For example, if you’re going to throw away an old computer but don’t want anyone to reuse it. There are scenarios where you might want to do this yourself. The real reason to use a USB killer is to quickly and irrevocably destroy computer equipment. However, this doesn’t make much sense, given that no computer can withstand this “test.” As far as we can tell, USB killers are not used for this purpose by penetration testers. The people who make USB killers claim they can test whether computer equipment is vulnerable to power surges. Suffice to say that cutting-edge kill sticks are no joke. You can also get several adapters that allow you to destroy devices via HDMI, DisplayPort, MicroUSB, and more. New USB kill sticks have internal batteries that destroy devices even when they are turned off. The latest USB killers take care of that obstacle and also have more attack modes.įor example, you can use them against smartphones or use a time delay so that you can plug it in, walk away and have the device self-destruct later when you’re gone. These more recent connection standards have much more advanced power limit controls, so older USB kill sticks may not work on newer systems. Newer models have higher discharge amounts and now have special electronics that bypass USB-C or Lightning port security. USB kill sticks aren’t very complicated devices, but folks who market them are adding new features.
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