Plugging unknown USB Flash Drives in your computer has always been known to be risky with a chance that a malicious program can give access to a hacker for your personal data but this risk is not till USB drives.
A security researcher named Mike Grover has developed modified Lightning cables that can hack someone’s computer with ease as reported by Motherboard, he sold some of the “O.MG cables” at the security conference Def Con 2019 (August 8th-11th) in Las Vegas.
He is currently selling his lightning cable look-alike “O.MG Cable” on the online security store Hak5 for around $100 as told by MG in his blog of DEFCON 2019.
MG told that his cable works similar to the lightning cable that you get with your iPhone, but there are a hidden software and hardware, including a wireless access point, inside its USB connector. When you plug in the cable into a computer, it can be triggered remotely to attempt to steal a user’s login credentials or install malicious software.
OMG! 2 months + 8 devs + O•MG Cable = malicious wireless implant update!
— _MG_ (@_MG_) April 12, 2019
This update brought to you by the chaos workshop elves: @d3d0c3d, @pry0cc, @clevernyyyy, @JoelSernaMoreno, @evanbooth, @noncetonic, @cnlohr, @RoganDawes
More info: https://t.co/kkhUppsqiC#OMGCable pic.twitter.com/fIzOaKJSxL
Mike Grover said that these kinds of cables have existed for a long time, he told that the NSA developed a similar cable with same features called the COTTONMOUTH and could be plugged into someone’s computer to wirelessly send software to it.
He said that he developed it without the resources of NSA, He built it in his kitchen, taking an off-the-shelf Lightning cable and transforming it with tiny circuit boards that he cast himself using a tiny personal circuit board milling machine from Bantam Tools.
MG is known for previous hardware hacking which includes a transformed Apple USB-C laptop charger that could hijack a user’s computer and a USB thumb drive that literally explodes after installing malicious software.
