The H.A.C.K.E.R. Project

A teaspoon of curiosity can cause cascading changes. Imagine that you are walking along the street one day on your way to work and find a USB drive laying there on the sidewalk, right by the front door to your office. Where did it come from? Who does it belong to? Many questions might surround this USB drive, so you pick it up and take it to your work computer. Plugging it in without hesitation, you take a look to see if there’s anything that might tell you who owns this drive. Suddenly, your entire machine is locked down with ransomware. You look to your coworker in the next cubicle, and you see the same message on their machine. And on every other machine that shared the same Wi-Fi or wired network as you. This is a scary scenario but, unfortunately, it is a realistic one. Plugging in a mysterious or unknown USB drive into your computer can wreak havoc; thus, if you find a strange USB drive anywhere, don’t plug it in.

How is Plugging in an Unknown USB Drive Dangerous?

Hackers generally employ one of two methods that utilize a USB Drive to hack into your machine. Regardless of which method used, however, both result in a similar fate: your machine’s security is compromised, and your data is put at risk.

The first method hackers use is often through macros embedded into a document. A macro is a short code snippet that usually allows you to perform routine tasks on documents with just a few keypresses. For example, you can create a macro that, when you press a certain key on your keyboard, automatically adds today’s date and your name to the top of a document. Or, you could have a macro that automatically adds up the values in each column of a spreadsheet, multiplies them by 2, and then puts that result at the bottom of each column. They are rather useful for routine tasks, but it is also possible to write a macro that contains a virus or malware. In order to use a macro that is integrated into a document, the user must give the macro permission to be enabled; this is where hackers are able to trick a user into enabling a macro that contains malware. Once this malicious macro is enabled, it “will be able to run malicious software that can do anything from activating the webcam to keeping a running log of keystrokes” (Business Insider).

The second method that hackers use, as described by BUSINESS INSIDER, is using a device called a “rubber ducky”; these look exactly like USB drives, but are instead another type of device that automatically install malicious software when plugged in. The computer does not recognize a rubber ducky as a USB drive, but rather it “will recognize [the rubber ducky as] a new keyboard once it’s plugged in and [will] automatically install its software… fooling the computer into running whatever commands a hacker has given” (Business Insider).

What Should I Do if I Find a Mysterious USB Drive?

If you find a mysterious USB drive– perhaps outside your office, or even inside your office (as some IT teams will purposefully leave USB drives out to see if any employees fall for this type of malicious attack)- DO NOT PLUG IT INTO YOUR COMPUTER. Instead, report it to your company’s IT team, or, if your organization has a lost-and-found, drop it off there instead. This still applies even if you don’t work for a company; no matter where you find the USB drive, see if there’s a nearby business and turn it in to their lost-and-found (such as a local library) or check on social media to see if anyone has mentioned that they are missing a USB drive. As fun as it may be to see what files are on the drive, it is never worth the risk.

Resources & Further Reading

Business Insider. “We Saw Firsthand How a USB Stick Is a Hacker’s Best Friend, but Your Worst Nightmare.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 30 Apr. 2016, http://www.businessinsider.com/hackers-usb-sticks-2016-4.