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WiFi Hides Inside a USB Cable

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Re: WiFi Hides Inside a USB Cable

#2
The construction of this device is quite impressive, in that it fits entirely inside a USB plug

The level of miniaturisation is not all that impressive, these have been around for a while:

https://www.amazon.com/Edimax-EW-7811Un-150Mbps-Raspberry-Su...

There's no mention of using the rest of the cable as the antenna, since in my experience the above tiny adapters have an equally tiny antenna and thus poor reception.

Re: WiFi Hides Inside a USB Cable

#3
This is scary. I mean someone can just replace the cables in my house and my phones and computer would become infected. I can't even imagine the headache this does for company's cybersecurity practices.

A rogue janitor replaces the usb cables on some of the employees of a company that makes $INSERT_SUPER SECRET_TECH$ and done.

Re: WiFi Hides Inside a USB Cable

#5

The construction of this device is quite impressive, in that it fits entirely inside a USB plug The level of miniaturisation is not all that impressive, these have been around for a while: https://www.amazon.com/Edimax-EW-7811Un-150Mbps-Raspberry-Su... There's no mention of using the rest of the cable as the antenna, since in my experience the above tiny adapters have an equally tiny antenna and thus poor reception.

It says there's a microcontroller as well.

Re: WiFi Hides Inside a USB Cable

#6
post #3

This is scary. I mean someone can just replace the cables in my house and my phones and computer would become infected. I can't even imagine the headache this does for company's cybersecurity practices. A rogue janitor replaces the usb cables on some of the employees of a company that makes $INSERT_SUPER SECRET_TECH$ and done.

How? I've never seen a device, certainly not a PC, that will just randomly connect to any router it sees without some sort of user input.

Re: WiFi Hides Inside a USB Cable

#7

The construction of this device is quite impressive, in that it fits entirely inside a USB plug The level of miniaturisation is not all that impressive, these have been around for a while: https://www.amazon.com/Edimax-EW-7811Un-150Mbps-Raspberry-Su... There's no mention of using the rest of the cable as the antenna, since in my experience the above tiny adapters have an equally tiny antenna and thus poor reception.

It’s still impressive. It looks really close to the official Apple one and I wouldn’t think twice about plugging an iOS thingy into my computer with it. The only telltale might be how the coating feels (the Apple ones have a specific rubberized texture), but that wouldn’t be enough to prevent me from plugging it in.

Edit: stupid me, he probably just replaced the USB-A side of a legit Apple one. Ignore the part about the coating.

Re: WiFi Hides Inside a USB Cable

#8

The construction of this device is quite impressive, in that it fits entirely inside a USB plug The level of miniaturisation is not all that impressive, these have been around for a while: https://www.amazon.com/Edimax-EW-7811Un-150Mbps-Raspberry-Su... There's no mention of using the rest of the cable as the antenna, since in my experience the above tiny adapters have an equally tiny antenna and thus poor reception.

* home manufacture.

Re: WiFi Hides Inside a USB Cable

#10
post #6
post #3

This is scary. I mean someone can just replace the cables in my house and my phones and computer would become infected. I can't even imagine the headache this does for company's cybersecurity practices. A rogue janitor replaces the usb cables on some of the employees of a company that makes $INSERT_SUPER SECRET_TECH$ and done.

How? I've never seen a device, certainly not a PC, that will just randomly connect to any router it sees without some sort of user input.

My understanding is that it allows an attacker connected to it via WiFi to mess with the plugged-in computer using USB (pretending to be a keyboard).

See the Twitter video: https://mg.lol/blog/omg-cable/

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