We know that virus and malware infection occurs by connecting an infected USB but in this scenario the matter is little different. A latest hacking tool is released by the Cyber criminals that can simply convert USB drive into silent malware installer.
This vulnerability is also known as "BadUSB", after the huge demand of producers the source code of this infection is published by the security researchers on the open source code hosting site Github for the both purpose to beef up defenses for USB flash drive firmware and fix this problem or to go away hundreds of millions of users vulnerable to the harass.
SOURCE CODE is AVAILABLE ONLINE for EVERYBODY
This dangerous security hole was firstly uncovered by the researchers from Berlin-based Security Research Labs (SRLabs in Germany) two months ago at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas. But the source code doesn’t publish by the German researchers because they thought it to be unsafe and too hard to patch.
THE GOOD NEWS AND THE BAD ONE
The good news for the computer user about this susceptibility is only the product of USB manufacturer Phison electronics is infected by this problem so you don’t need to worry if you are using any other manufacturer’s USB device. Phison is a Taiwanese electronics company. The bad news is, Phison USB sticks is capable to make infect any devices which are plugged into.
BadUSB VULNERABILITY IS UNPATCHABLE
Due to this fault it basically alters the firmware of USB devices, which can completed from inside the operating system and put in the hidden malware in USB devices. Because of its cleverness it becomes almost impossible to detect it. This fault is most horrible because total formatting or deleting the contents of a USB device wouldn't remove the malevolent code since the codes are fixed in the firmware.
IMPACT OF BadUSB ATTACK
Once compromised, the USB devices can reportedly:
- enter keystrokes
- Modifies files
- influence Internet activity
- Able to make other computer infected and then spread it to added USB devices
- Burlesques a system card and change the computer’s DNS setting to redirect traffic
- Reproduces a keyboard and subject commands on the absence of the logged-in user.
Throughout their Derbycon exposure, the both researchers replicated the followed keyboard attack, but also clarify how to create a hidden divider on thumb drives to hit forensic tools and how to avoid the password for restricted partitions on some USB drives in which such a characteristic is inbuilt.
How to get rid of Malware:
To avoid this malware codes you have to avoid using the given brand of USB device, malware can also comes from the internet so it is necessary to use a malware removal tool. This tool is specially designed to deal with the malware infection and remove them as soon as possible.