If there’s one thing hackers don’t miss, it’s picaresque. Just when you think you have best protected your system, a new attack vector appears, a new technique that renders all your hard work obsolete.
[Robar una cuenta de WhatsApp va a ser mucho más difícil a partir de ahora]
And it’s good. Not all hackers have malicious interests, and many want to find security holes precisely to hide them and prevent others from using them; even if it means exploiting a process as common and simple as connecting a cable to our mobile.
The cable that hacks the mobile
Interestingly enough, the O.MG cable shown at the last Def Con, a conference for hackers and cybersecurity experts, is able to do just that. Although at first glance it looks like a conventional cable, it contains the necessary hardware and software to steal our data and send it to an external server via Wi-Fi, as explained in The edge
In effect, the cable itself has Wi-Fi, which says a lot about the complexity of this project; its creator, known simply by the acronym MG, managed to integrate all the necessary chips into the USB connection itself, so the attacker only has to trick the victim into using the cable, for example, to charge the mobile and the device will do all the work.
The cable is able to trick the system because it pretends to be a USB keyboard, and in this way it is able to insert commands and execute them; in the same way, it is also able to record everything that is written on the mobile while the cable is plugged in, save up to 650,000 keystrokes
The attacker doesn’t even need to get the cable to recover the stolen data; the integrated Wi-Fi connection allows you to connect to an external server in which to save the information. In this way, the usual security measures are bypassed, such as antivirus or firewalls, since the connection is not made through the mobile. This also means that the cable is able to obtain data from “isolated” systems, which are not connected to the Internet for security reasons.
The cable can be configured with different connections, such as USB-A, USB-C or Lightning for iPhone; in the same way, it is compatible with all types of operating systems, such as Android, iOS, Windows and macOS.
The O.MG Cable was designed as a tool for professionals to test the security of their systems, and the price of $179.99 reflects that. Although you are unlikely to fall victim to an attack with this cable, it is a good reminder that you should never connect unknown devices to your mobile or computer, be it cables , USB keys or anything else, because physical access is the most coveted by hackers.
