This “Killer USB” Flash Drive Will Explode Your Computer

Forget USB 3.1 and USB Type-C, the USB I’m going to describe ahead, will burn down your computer if you insert it in the USB port.

The Killer USB

This story about making a USB flash drive into a bomb was described by a Russian researcher who took an interest in this concept and developed a USB killer pen drive which can burn your computer to ashes.
He says:

"The basic idea of the USB drive is quite simple. When we connect it up to the USB port, an inverting DC/DC converter runs and charges capacitors to -110V. When the voltage is reached, the DC/DC is switched off. At the same time, the filed transistor opens. It is used to apply the -110V to signal lines of the USB interface. When the voltage on capacitors increases to -7V, the transistor closes and the DC/DC starts. The loop runs till everything possible is broken down. Those familiar with the electronics have already guessed why we use negative voltage here. I‘ll explain to others that negative voltage is easier to commutate, as we need the N-channel field resistor, which, unlike the P-channel one, can have larger current for the same dimensions."

This researcher, nicknamed Dark Purple, works with an electronic company and he ordered some China manufactured circuit boards and created a USB killer device for himself.

After finishing, it looks like a regular USB

Talking about the danger involved, he says:

"Within a week, I have developed quite specific circuit implementation, ordered components. After a few months of waiting for them, I made a full-fledged prototype. I tested the idea and “burnt down” everything I could. I’m not going to talk to you about the application area, but a former colleague says that it’s like an atomic bomb: cool to have, but can not be applied."

The Hacker News writes that instances of hacking into the systems and increasing the temperature of a computer to make it burn has happened in the past.
Back in 2014, a security firm demonstrated the same in Apple’s Mac.

If such instances are possible, cyber criminals can surely turn a USB into a bomb and kill people.

So next time if you find a USB flash drive somewhere, what will you do? Throw it away or plug it in some USB port to check the contents?

Monitor TCP, UDP Communication in Windows with PortExpert

PortExpert is a free  application that can give very useful information about all TCP, UDP communications connected to the system and is hence useful to identify potential threats.
These days we are hearing of many hacking stories, where millions of computers are being compromised by malware. Monitoring TCP/UDP traffic can help a user protect their computer from active threats.
They can check all active connection those are trying to connect to internet or sending receiving packets.

PortExpert checks for open TCP or UDP ports that can be used by hackers to perform malicious activity on the system. A computer user must check for threats, virus or open ports, and they should run scans on a timely basis to detect and remove those threats from their computer.

Monitor TCP, UDP Ports

When a user launches PortExpert, they will see list of all TCP or UDP ports which are active and connected with their remote IP address. A user can double-click on any such active connection to dig further and learn more about that connection. The Freeze Time option can be used further to deactivate any connection.
The whois, feature can be used to learn more about the IP address location. It will open whois.domaintools.com website when an IP address is selected from the pool of active connection. By clicking on Search Web feature, a user can learn more about the current process which is currently accessing internet using active TCP/UDP connection.

The Show System Process, is another option using this user can check current active ports used by OS files. Show Local Connection will open current active UDP port connection and a user can select any such running process and read the basic information about the process ID and the Protocol (TCP, UDP) it is using to connect, local address and remote address with port number.

netstat command

Users can also check active connection using Windows in-built command line. To see all active network connection, open a command prompt window, type netstat and hit Enter. This command will show you the active TCP connections and ports with the physical computer name. Type netstat /? to list down all commands along with the task description.
Using netstat -n command will show TCP connections and ports with numerical or IP address instead of computers or services actual name. netstat -a and netstat -b are other few commands that can help user to check various active connections.

PortExpert free download

Go get it from it  home page.
Remember to download the Lite installer or the Portable version as otherwise you may be offered bundled software.

Enable, Disable Command Prompt using GPO or Windows Registry

To prevent access to the Command Prompt in Window, you can make use of Group Policy settings or edit the Windows Registry, so as to disable the Command Prompt. When you do this, it will prevent users from running the interactive command prompt or CMD.exe. Let us see how we can do it in Windows 8 / 7.

Disable Command Prompt

Using GPO



Open Run box, type gpedit.msc and hit Enter to open the Local Group Policy Editor. Navigate to the following path:

User Configuration/Administrative Templates/System

In the right side pane you will see Prevent access to the command prompt. Double click on it to set the policy. Select Enabled and click Apply/OK.

This policy setting prevents users from running the interactive command prompt, Cmd.exe.  This policy setting also determines whether batch files (.cmd and .bat) can run on the computer. If you enable this policy setting and the user tries to open a command window, the system displays a message explaining that a setting prevents the action. If you disable this policy setting or do not configure it, users can run Cmd.exe and batch files normally.

Here, you can also Disable the command prompt script processing also, if you wish.
If your version of Windows does not have Group Policy, you can do the following.

Using Registry
Run regedit to open the Registry Editor. navigate to the following registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\System

If the Windows or System key is not present, you may be required to create them.
In the right pane, double click DisableCMD and set its value to 0.
If DisableCMD is not present on your system, you may be required to create a new DWORD value, name it DisableCMD and then give it a value 0.
Now if any user were to try to open CMD, they would see a message:

The command prompt has been disabled by your administrator.

Enable CMD

If for some reason, you need to do the reverse, ie. enable the command prompt, simply disable the Prevent access to the command prompt policy setting. In the registry, you may delete the DisableCMD DWORD or set its value to 1.

Hope this helps!