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New malware can live inside any USB device undetected
It turns out that the stalwart USB thumbstick, or any universal serial bus device, isn't as trustworthy as once thought. A pair of security researchers has found we need to worry about more than just malware-infected files that are stored portable drives, and now need to guard against hacks built into our geek-stick's firmware according to Wired. The proof-of-concept malware Karsten Nohl and Jakob Lell have created is invisible and installable on a USB device and can do everything from taking over a user's PC to hijacking the DNS settings for your browser. Or, if it's installed on a mobile device it can spy on your communications and send them to a remote location, similar to the NSA's Cottonmouth gadgets. If those don't worry you, perhaps that the "BadUSB" malware can infect any USB device -- including keyboards -- and wreak havoc, will. What's more, a simple reformat isn't enough to disinfect either, and the solution that Lell and Nohl suggest goes against the core of what many of us are used to doing.
