USB Killer Stick Takes out 50 Computers

Kills cars too. There's a video or two of some idiot plugging one in to the USB port in their car. These have been around since 2016 or earlier.

I may or may not have had some fun in a computer lab with a defective off the shelf USB device that kernel panics or BSODs every device it's plugged into
 
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tangent said:
I may or may not have had some fun in a computer lab with a defective off the shelf USB device that kernel panics or BSODs every device it's plugged into
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LOL. That is just a prank though, especially if the computers are naturally reloaded from a clean image when booting up.
 
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bp2008 said:
LOL. That is just a prank though, especially if the computers are naturally reloaded from a clean image when booting up.
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At least once a month somebody would hack a professor's laptop during a lecture (I never saw anything malicious, just disruptive pranks). XP was fun :lol:
 
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bp2008 said:
I'm sure it would affect most devices with a USB port if it works by creating surges!!
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I watched a guy try it on a MacBook, It took out the port but saved the mobo, Average windows PC...Toast, They tried it on a big screen TV, again took out the port but the tv ran on.
 
tangent said:
Kills cars too. There's a video or two of some idiot plugging one in to the USB port in their car. These have been around since 2016 or earlier.

I may or may not have had some fun in a computer lab with a defective off the shelf USB device that kernel panics or BSODs every device it's plugged into
Click to expand...

I haven't googled this so I'm presuming it's a capacitor that charges from the usb power and then discharges a pulse back into the system?
 
Gotta wonder what the motivation was and exactly what is going on in the idiots brain?
 
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I googled it and found out. It uses a bank of capacitors to discharge over 200v on continuous cycles until the device it's attached to is destroyed. Apparently it exploits a surge protection flaw in USB boards - they don't have any to save costs! I haven't linked the web site selling these here for obvious reasons although it's not hard to find.

As for motives, you can only presume with such a targeted attack, that the guy was probably dissatisfied with his grades or treatment at the University.
 
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