(C) BoingBoing
Author Name: BoingBoing
This story was originally published on Boingboing.net. [1]
License: CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0.[2]


Normal-looking USB cable logs everything you do and can be radioed from more than 1 mile away

2021-09-02 00:00:00

The O. MG USB cable comes with USB-C or Lightning tips and costs $120. If that seems extraordinarily expensive for a USB cable, it's because this one was made by security researcher MG and has WiFi, records everything the user does (up to 650,000 keystrokes), and has an optional long-distance wireless radio trigger to control it with and deliver payloads. Vice bought one and checked it out.

"There were people who said that Type C cables were safe from this type of implant because there isn't enough space. So, clearly, I had to prove that wrong. :)," MG told Motherboard in an online chat. … "We tested this out in downtown Oakland and were able to trigger payloads at over 1 mile," he added.

You might be able to tell it's not a true Apple cable from the sheen of the plastic or sheathing, perhaps, but there is no external indication at all that it's anything other than a bog standard cable.
[END]

[1] URL: https://boingboing.net/2021/09/02/normal-looking-usb-cable-logs-everything-you-do-and-can-be-radioed-from-more-than-1-mile-away.html
[2] URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/

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