News O.MG USB-C cable CT scan reveals sinister active electronics — contains a hidden antenna and another die embedded in the microcontroller

[ex_bubblehead]

All right, let's keep it civil, unless you prefer being on the outside looking in.

 

[stuff and nonesense]

All these comments and not a single person went to the website where you can purchase this cable.

This cable is sold to companies so they can do test

The following is taken directly from the website

"The O.MG Cable is a hand made USB cable with an advanced implant hidden inside. It is designed to allow your Red Team to emulate attack scenarios of sophisticated adversaries. Until now, a cable like this would cost $20,000 (ex: NSA's COTTONMOUTH-I). These cables will allow you to test new detection opportunities for your defense teams. They are also extremely impactful tools for teaching and training."


It's for teaching, and it's not being used for anything else.

Unless the PEN tester becomes the genuinely malicious actor.

Jack Rhysider (Darknet diaries YouTube) has a good stories about PEN test successes and fails.

 

[bit_user]

Unless the PEN tester becomes the genuinely malicious actor.

Yeah, I'm sure a lot of hacking tools are marketed for Pen. testing and "white hat" uses, even though their creators are fully aware and maybe don't mind that some nefarious actors will buy and use them.

I think there's not a simple answer to this dilemma, as you can never prevent people from doing bad things and you do want to equip the good guys so they're aware of the exploits and can test their defenses. It pretty much comes down to trying to do what you can to make the tools harder to misuse and making their abuse easier for potential victims to detect.

 

[Lee Leahy]

Please see section 4.9 of the Universal Serial Bus Type-C Cable and Connector Specification (https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/USB Type-C Spec R2.0 - August 2019.pdf) for a description of the chip operations.