'Unhackable' Flash Drive, Easily Hacked

Cyber security is a very lucrative business. In a world where online transactions are becoming more of the standard than the minority, it would stand to reason that data should be protected and kept in a safe storage space. Not accounting for the fact that big tech companies sell user data to third parties, we can assume that most of our data are secure.

We want to guard our private and confidential information as much as possible so we avail of products and services that offer secure storage for our files and data. And when you hear that something is "unhackable" you might want to check it out, right?

There was a Kickstarter project that claimed that they had developed an "unhackable" USB flash drive. They based this on the fact that their device uses iris recognition to access the files in the drive. However, recently a few researchers tested out this claim and found one big loophole in the device that allows anyone with the right tools to "sniff USB device traffic".

Lodge had picked, picked, picked apart components until reaching an understanding: "What we have here is, literally, a USB stick with a hub and camera attached. That means most of the brains are in the software.
Lodge stated that "obtaining the password/iris can be achieved by simply sniffing the USB traffic to get the password/hash in clear text."

-via Phys.org

(Image credit: artverau/Pixabay)


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Oh, what happened rshewmaker? I remember ruining a USB drive when I forgot to "eject" it from the system before pulling it out of its slot. But otherwise, no problems.
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