“A Hong Kong based manufacturer, USB Kill, recently developed a device that can annihilate [almost] any modern device there is,” The Deccan Chronicle reports. “The USB Killer is not a toy. Created by a manufacturer based in Hong Kong, USB Kill, it is thumb drive that destroys the physical components of any modern device that it is plugged into.”
“The thumb drive named USB Kill 2.0 is a testing device created to test USB ports against power surge attacks. How it works? It simply collects power from the USB power lines until it reaches a certain voltage (240V). Following which it discharges the stored voltage into the USB data lines. This cycle is rapid and repeated till the device can no longer discharge or in other words, the circuit of the machine is broken or destroyed,” The Deccan Chronicle reports. “The device is not created for evil purposes.”
“According to the tests conducted by USB Kill, over 95 per cent of the devices are affected by a USB power surge attack. In fact, majority of these consumer-level hardware have failed when tested against the USB Kill,” The Deccan Chronicle reports. “‘To this day, according to our testing, the only company that releases hardware protected against a USB power-surge attack is Apple, on their Laptop and Desktop ranges. This means – despite adequate warning, and time to respond – the majority of consumer-level hardware manufacturers choose not to protect their customer’s devices. We are disheartened by this lack of respect for customers,’ said the organization.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As if anyone sane needed yet another reason to buy a Mac over a crappy Windows PC.
More info about and/or link to buy USB Kill (€49.95) here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Al” for the heads up.]
