USB Danger

Oh, no! The horse has escaped from the barn. Guess we better close the doors!

Old hat - earlier last year there were reports of things like USB Drives being 'left' for 'lucky' people to find. The bait would contain some nasty code etc. Things like Data sticks are everywhere, and often handed out as promotional gifts. I've never heard of somebody getting infected with a 'find' (not even somebody finding one). However, two issues come to mind here ;

Why is The BBC used as a source for the US DoD ?

What's the fuss, when British Civil Servants loose more Laptops than you can shake a stick at ? It sounds like security organizations almost hand them out, and Government departments allow employees to transport millions of peoples details, without encryption, anywhere they want.

If you give your details to any Government, it could will end up anywhere. Any data you put on a computer is at risk.

Looks like there's a need for a whole new product / industry: USB stick "pre-filters".

A standalone malware scanning device into which the user must insert the stick before the information on it can be passed to a PC.

You're welcome. Please send my royalty checks to the usual address.

http://antivirus.about.com/od/antivirussoftwarereviews/a/usbantivirus.htm

the above article is from 2005

Yes, that's all well and good. But MY product idea also comes with an iPod dock. And a free Wonder Chamois if you call right now.

This one's a LOL; http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article5434062.ece

That is a good one.

NPR (National Public Radio) aired a segment recently that addressed Gov security in the states. I forget who the man they interviewed was. He was a former so and so and very very smart, practical and common sense minded.

He spoke of a recent event in which a foreign gov was suspected of initiating or at least allowing a data strike to occur.

The data strike (my term, pretty good one huh?) took shape as digital picture frames were transferring data from computers to the frames. It seems the frames were leaving a bit of data of their own behind.

Subsequently the digital frames were banned from gov facilities. Not until "the horse was out of the barn".

I'll see if I can find a link to the interview. It was really good and talked about a number of vulnerabilities to U.S. infrastructure as a whole.

Interesting - was it anything like this ;

http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/15/insignia-photo-frame-virus-much-nastier-than-originally-thought/

http://hackaday.com/2009/01/08/hacking-a-digital-picture-keychain/

....talked about a number of vulnerabilities to U.S. infrastructure - must be one helluva long article ! 'Data strike's good. Maybe programmers should practice safe hex ?

Kudos to Kris! That's the stuff.

The gentleman interviewed suggested that the government of origin was involved which escalates the whole cyber warfare idea to another much more sinister level through the mundane practices of a free economy.

Ta for the Kudos, they'll be added to my Kraal.

You can bet your bottom dollar that all sides are at it ; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_Rain

This was one of the links within the article you linked in Wiki.....here.

Quite a bit of info on this subject to be read. Thanks again Kris.

I offer you a treat

_{(it's a giant brazil nut)}