USB Kill: The $55 Gadget That Will Fry Most Devices (Video of killer in operation)

The Mac Observer ^ | October 10, 2016 | By Bryan Chaffin

[The_Media_never_lie]

Why was this created? Malicious. Maybe it beats hitting the device with a hammer though.

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Hillary's hammer will do the same with far less cost.

[mad_as_he$$]

A 9mm is the only safe way to insure the data is not recoverable.

[wally_bert]

A D9 dropping it’s blade and a few back and forth passes would too. Preferably on a hard surface.

[upchuck]

If I could understand your post perhaps I could apply for a mini degree in electrical engineering :)

Thanks much for the explanation.

[fella]

Kind of like a personalized EMP.

[Hodar]

The theory of operation is that USB traffic, by spec deals with POSTED commands. Essentially, this means that upstream there is a “Did younget this?” request that MUST be answered. It cannot be ignored.

By blowing out the data transmit/receive buffers, the bus and thereby the PC is permanently hung. Everything stops. With the transmit/buffers blown nothing gets communicated about a timeout or bad device.

That said, there is nothing that would lead one to assume that any data on a SSD would be affected as the Solid state drive is on a SATA bus, which is on a totally different bus hub structure than the USB bus. Further, PCI buses can be like a tree and have 3+ branches. Any of these branches could support multiple USB hubs, so depending which USB hub was blown, could mean limited loss of functionality or total.

That said, the opto-isolators are the best protection you will find for this type of attack.

[imardmd1]

Ph. D. in Ceramic Science, actually. I was once considered an "expert" in MultiLayer Ceramic Capacitors (MLCs). An "ex" is a "has-been" and a "spurt" is a drip under pressure.

Have a great fall day!

[OldNewYork]

True. More economical. The malicious part I guess is that it could be done to a computer someone had been entrusted access to and the owner might not realize for a while, and thus might not know who had done it. A hammer is more honest.

[dayglored]

USB HV device, can kill any computer (Windows, Mac, Linux) ... PING!

You can find all the Windows Ping list threads with FR search: just search on keyword "windowspinglist".

Thanks to Swordmaker for the ping!!