A new study found that almost half of the people who find a USB stick in the parking lot will connect it to their computers.
Researchers from Google, the University of Illinois, and the University of Michigan "threw" 297 USB drives around the Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus, and found that 48 percent of USBs were connected to a computer, minutes later.
“Her community better safetyς πιστεύει εδώ και καιρό ότι οι χρήστες μπορούν να πέσουν θύματα επιθέσεων Social engineering μαζεύοντας και συνδέοντας φαινομενικά “χαμένες” μονάδες USB flash,” αναφέρουν οι ερευνητές.
“Δυστυχώς, είτε από αλτρουιστικά κίνητρα ή από ανθρώπινη περιέργεια, ο χρήστης εν αγνοία του ανοίγει μια θύρα σε μια επίθεση όταν συνδέσει τη μονάδα δίσκου. Ένα φυσικό Trojan horse.”
For the study, researchers used USB sticks that contained HTML files with embedded img tags. By opening the files, the image communicated with a remote server, allowing researchers to monitor the use of USB drives in the area.
USB sticks took a few minutes to a few hours to connect to computers.
In addition, the study found that only 16% of users bothered to scan the units with some anti-virus before opening it on their computers. 68% of respondents said they did not take any precautionary measures before joining units.
The users stated that for the most part they acted in good faith. 68% of users said they opened the removable disk to find their owner, and few of the respondents said they were planning to keep the USB.
