You’ve just got another reason to quit cigarette smoking; even the electronic one. It can -no matter how unbelievable this sounds- be the reason your computer becoming a hacker’s attack victim.
You think your electronic cigarette just charges its battery with the help of your computer, but it can do… its own work behind your back!
A cyber security researcher, Ross Bewington, who made a presentation in London, according to “Sky News” and “Daily Mail”, emphasized that it is possible to break the security of a computer, if its USB port is connected to an –“infected” by a hacker- electronic cigarette, for charging its battery.
In this way, it is possible to “sneak” a malware into the unsuspecting user’s computer. Of course, in order for this to happen, the hacker must first “hurt” the chip of the electronic cigarette, so that it can execute its malicious code when it is connected to the computer.
Although the attack implies that the user’s system is unlocked, Bevington does not exclude that even code-locked computers could be vulnerable.
Another “white” hacker and cyber security researcher, “FourOctets” -who has developed a similar method of attack through an electronic cigarette, to which a “wicked” chip has been added– confirmed this threat. This hacker uses the appropriate script to open “Windows Notepad” as soon as the electronic cigarette is plugged into a laptop computer, which is misled, thinking that it is connected to a keyboard or a mouse. Next, it is possible to install a malware on the user’s system.
An obstacle for the potential hacker is that electronic cigarettes have limited space to host sophisticated malicious code.
“This sets limits on how advanced an attack can be through an electronic cigarette”,
Bevington said.
For example, the recent “WannaCry” malware was 4 to 5 MB large, hundreds of times larger than the available space of an electronic cigarette.
On the other hand, according to Bevington,
“it would be possible to use an electronic cigarette to download a larger malicious file from the internet!”.
The best protection against all these imaginative threats is to install the latest security updates on your computer and lock it with a strong password when it’s absent.
For even greater security, let us avoid giving our electronic cigarettes to strangers! And even better after smoking we can completely cut off steaming.
Source: http://www.protothema.gr
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