A team of scientists have created a new intermediate device that creates a gateway between flash drives and a computer’s USB ports.
Although USB devices such as flash drives are convenient and make moving data between devices easier, they can also be abused by cybercriminals to infect computers with malware and other viruses. This is why a team of scientists and professors from Liverpool Hope University in the UK have created a sophisticated new device capable of countering the threats posed by malicious USB devices. The project, led by Dr Shishir Kumar Shandilya alongside Professor Atulya Nagar, is aimed at removing one of the most common paths through which malicious files and programs can be injected by attackers and cybercriminals. Dr Shandilya provided further insight on how one of the main problems with flash drives is that a computer’s operating system often treats them as a ‘trusted component’ in a press release, saying: “If the OS is not configured to restrict and promote the user’s permission on an inserted USB device, then as soon as the USB drive is inserted it can execute default auto run script that can deliver the intended payload to the computing devices and deliver multiple kinds of malicious programs such as viruses, Trojans, Keyloggers, Spyware, Remote Access Trojans (RATs), and so forth to the computing devices.
