I read an article today about the growing concern of worms embedded on USB flash drives. With the popularity of UFDs it’s important to protect yourself so that viruses, worms and identity theft don’t happen to you. This new type of worm is embedded on UFDs, than automatically runs when connected to an operating system.
Computer owners should tread very carefully when plugging an unknown device into their PC as it could have malicious code planted on it.
The best way to prevent a worm or virus from entering your system is disabling the autorun file on your Operating System before connecting the USB thumb drive.
Since memory prices have dropped the USB stick is a hot item for tradeshows, give-aways and direct mailers. For this reason, it’s important to protect yourself from unwanted viruses. In addition, these flash drives could become a big threat to companies as the financial motivation to obtain secure information has big payoffs.
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GetUSB.info has reported on several off-the-shelf USB extenders, but they are high priced, at least for the home user. If you have low signal strength and on a tight budget, here is a tutorial on making your own beefed up WiFi USB extender.
Using this home-brew WiFi extender will help pick up dozens more hot-spots in your area; don’t believe it – we’ll you’ll just have to try it – this really works. The premise of this solution is taking a parabolic dish and bouncing all possible waves into the focal point of the “dish” or in this case, the WiFi USB stick.
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TrueCrypt has just what you are looking for, provided you are looking for free USB flash drive encryption software utilities.
The best feature of TrueCrypt is the automatic, on-the-fly, real-time encryption process. So it’s completely transparent.
The other great feature is the Plausible Deniability feature which provides two levels for you.
Level 1: Hidden volumes. This is where a volume is created within another volume by TrueCrypt. The upper level (the one seen by a person forcing you to get the content) is filled with random data, so you can show them “Look man, there’s nothing there!”
Level 2: A volume appears to consist of nothing more than random data, no signature or typology what-so-ever. Therefore, it is impossible to prove that a file, a partition or a device has been encrypted.
To round out the offerings of this free USB encryption software, TrueCrypt includes a key-log which records the time and date the last time modifications were made. Such as password changes, data access or more concerning information such as last time the device was mounted in an OS, or attempted to be mounted.
The only down side, which I feel
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So here’s a guy who took geekness to the next level. After the enclosure broke off Russell’s 1GB UFD Voyager, he decided to up the durability factor by a Thousand.
Russell home brewed an aluminum UFD case to insure breakage never happened again. I’d probably do the same if I had access to this equipment.
Using 1/4″ aluminum stock and some hex head screws he created one master piece enclosure even the indestructible guys would be proud of.
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So here is a simple project to groom your child into the geek parent you are. Over at Hacked Gadgets Alan pointed out a “how-to” on creating your own USB charger from Lego’s.
The charger uses a Lego motor to generate current which passes through a voltage regulator and off to the USB port. If you don’t already have the Lego motor you can pick them up at target and the voltage regulator at Radio Shack.
When all done, rather then sending your kid to time-out, have them hand-crank and recharge your favorite MP3 player.
Here is a picture of the hand crank with electronics already installed.
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The buzz about Apple TV remains strong, especially with new hacks and plugins. The most recent is an RSS reader plugin which is fully functioning with RSS1.x and 2.x. You can grab this plugin from the folks who cranked it out, twenty08. Only downer is the lack of support from ATOM feeds, but that group is a minority these days.
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I read an interesting report from Dark Reading today regarding hacking Bluetooth and how USB can play a roll. (Not that hacking for the dark force is anything cool) You don’t hear much about Bluetooth hacks because the tools needed (sniffers) start at about 10Grand.
A couple of security engineers where able to use a Cambridge Silicon Radio chip-based USB dongle, some flash memory and Bluetooth 2.x technology and some code hacked from a commercial Bluetooth sniffer to hack into a device’s communication via the Bluetooth signal.
There was no specific USB hack How-To information but the point is that if a simple USB dongle can be construed to do Bluetooth hacking then security risks for not only communication but device control could become a huge big problem.
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Another Update:Use external drive via USB for unlimited storage!
Update: The guys at AwkwardTV.org have been very busy. Here are some quick links to their wiki site with some great AppleTV hacks.
The full wiki is here. None of this could be done without the hard work of Ozy and his clan at AwkwardTV.org
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Ozy from AwkwardTV.org figured out how to write a bootstrap from USB so that he can now start to hack AppleTV without opening the box. Here is a showcase of the USB boot.
If you’re interested in more details on this hack and others, visit AwkwardTV.org for updates.
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Revo put some sex drive into their USB flash. Turning the tables, Revo incorporates a collection of sexy pictures as your encryption technology. Simply place these erotic pictures in correct order and…your IN. Not only does this make security fun for the owner, but equally as fun for the hacker.
My buddy purchased a Zune a couple days ago and learned it didn’t work with his Windows Vista. He did figure out how to run the Zune on Windows Vista. A little digging around he came up with the following article, thought to pass it along.
Before you start be sure you have the Zune CD, WinRAR (if you don’t have it, grab a trial version) and a this Zune.msi install patch (here *requires log-in on forum).
There are 10 steps to this process and please don’t plug in your Zune until prompted to by the Zune software.
Instructions:
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So here’s a poor mans USB hack to secure your network from unscrupulous characters downloading company secrets via USB.
In Windows XP SP2 and Vista you can disable writing to USB devices altogether by implementing a simple registry hack.
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\
Control\StorageDevicePolicies] “WriteProtectâ€=dword:00000001
**Note: I inserted a break after …Set\< br>Control… to fit into post page.
Once done, reboot and you’re set. Make sure others don’t have Administrative rights, otherwise they could easily set things back. Here is the Vista error message upon copy attempt:
There is an auto executable download available to disable writing to USB drives without searching for the registry area yourself. If interested in this USB hack, then jump over to How-To-Geek and snag it.
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There is definitely an Altoids DIY underground. I bumped into an article on how to make an iPod charger from an Altoids Tin yesterday at Chris DiClerico’s website. After doing a little research I see there is a big following for Altoids Tin do-it-yourself projects. So, to service my reader group, herezzz the how to:
It’s a very easy project and a great one for beginners looking to tweak something. The goal is to make a charger from two 9V batteries and two AA batteries which should juice your iPod for another 10 hours. Then house that charger in a clean looking Altoids Tin. Couple things you’ll need:
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