Spreading Malware Through Dropped USB Sticks Could Be Highly Effective, Research Finds

[Lucian Armasu]

Google researchers discovered that almost half of dropped USB sticks that are picked up by people are then opened on their PCs, exposing them to potential malware infection.

Spreading Malware Through Dropped USB Sticks Could Be Highly Effective, Research Finds : Read more

 

[captaincharisma]

so if you are walking around and find a 250GB USB stick on the ground it's a trap!!! lol

 

[wifiburger]

I have my doubts how effective it would be, this article assumes 100% of earth population has a computer and knows what a USB stick is

 

[ARCook]

Actually, I would say a large % of American's would absolutely know exactly what this is for. We are already seeing a large increase in ransomware attacks in Healthcare... Dropping these near a nursing station could easily be successful.

Business are the new targets of cyber criminals, not your home computers. Unsure why you would assume 100% of the earths population would need to be involved for this to have risk... Based on these numbers, 1 in 3 people will cause a failure. So you need 3 people that are computer literate, not 6.5 billion.

 

[knowom]

If you find a USB stick reformat it and you are good to go!

 

[anbello262]

I would be one of the people who open the files. Althoug I would most likely do it in a sandboxed environment, though. 90% of the usb sticks you find (completely made up number) will be personal sticks, not malware sticks, I'd guess. Of course, depends on where you live.

 

[lorfa]

Would it help to label it 'Kaley Cuoco nudes'? : p

 

[cub_fanatic]

They did this in Mr. Robot and it didn't work because the prison guard's PC had Avast real-time protection that caught the malware in time.

 

[targetdrone]

If you find a USB stick reformat it and you are good to go!

Not necessary. If the firmware of the usb stick is "hacked" merely plugging it into a computer will infect your computer.

 

[hoofhearted]

In other new, terrorists build USB stick bombs.

 

[Gunkk0]

Well that's how Stuxnet got into the Iran nuclear centrifuges... so of course it'll work. The only thing better would be to print BRAZZERS on them first beforehand...

 

[captaincharisma]

Well that's how Stuxnet got into the Iran nuclear centrifuges... so of course it'll work. The only thing better would be to print BRAZZERS on them first beforehand...

nah. just spray paint them gray and put the white apple logo on them and you have at least a 90%chance of someone snaging it

 

[problematiq]

*Cough* Stuxs-net *Cough*