Security experts have warned of the dangers of USB for years. They consider them very well good malware. A Russian researcher, however, discovered a more direct method of destroying a computer. Electricity.
The idea is simple: the researcher, nicknamed Deep Purple, added to a "broken" USB stick, and installed one inverter DC-DC converter and some capacitors that can be purchased from Chinese websites.
When the USB stick is inserted into the computer port, it starts charging the capacitors to -110V, as the blog reports Hackaday. Then, a transistor expels the stored electricity through the USB port.
This continues until the capacitors have dropped to -7V, at which point the DC-DC converter turns on again, and begins charging the capacitors for the next cycle.
USB ports are usually protected from electrical attacks, but the inverter DC-DC converter seems to bypass these defenses. It overwhelms them and eventually can damage the sensitive internal components of each computer.
The researcher (very wisely) did not publish schematics of his discovery, nor critical details about how one might build such a USB, as such a device has the potential to burn not only the USB port, but possibly motherboards, or even the CPU itself.
"I'm not going to talk about it, but a former colleague tells me it's like an atomic bomb," says Deep Purple.
It certainly gives us another good reason to never use an untrusted USB device.
