Consider a resold USB like a resold, used water bottle: Has it been cleaned? Probably. In either case, these viruses can do anything from crashing your computer to phishing personal information like passwords and credit card numbers. In some cases, you might be purchasing a virus directly from the developer, while in others, you might be purchasing from another neglectful user who may or may not be aware of the malware being passed to you over the counter. The trouble is, when you buy a USB thumb drive or cable at a yard sale or flea market, you are most likely buying it from a stranger whose intents and motives are completely unknown to you. Usually, each only costs about a dollar, fifty cents if you are “lucky”. Just Because It is being Resold, Does Not Mean It is Safe: Flash drives and cables are some of those items you can find at garage sales (or “lost-and-found” sales, which are hosted at universities when lost items have not been claimed after a certain amount of time). While not every USB is guaranteed to be malware-infested and ready to kill your computer, it is still safer to leave random thumb drives and cables/chargers alone.Ģ. The 2019 Verizon DBIR reports that out of all the past year’s data breaches, 28% involved malware being installed on devices ( Verizon). Chargers have also been observed to transfer malware from one device to another. The first might not have anything on them besides vacation photos, and there is always a chance that a cable might have truly fallen out of someone’s backpack. “Rogue” Means “Regret”: Thumb drives and cables dropped on the ground could be genuinely lost by their owners. That said, in this post, we will discuss the four big rules of USB safety.ġ. However, this is an action that can cause serious damage to anyone unfamiliar with cybersecurity hygiene. That said, there was likely a “method to the madness”, as the saying goes. Granted, Morse points out at the end of the article that this somebody was a computer analyst (Morse).

For example in Jack Morse’s Mashable post titled “Yes, officials plugged in the malware-laden USB seized at Mar-a-Lago”, during the recent Mar-a-Lago incident, in which the Secret Service confiscated and inserted a USB thumb drive from an intruding Chinese woman, the club’s computer was corrupted with data-gathering files – all because somebody decided to plug in the mysterious USB. USB chargers can be used to charge your phone, but they can also sap your data as fast as a vampire draining your blood and USB drives can store files, but they can also store viruses that can hijack and ransom your data. However, USB can also be a dangerous vector for malware, even more so to the victims who are both unaware and unprepared. Almost every individual uses the latter to charge their phones. Students use the first to store documents they need to transfer from a home desktop to the library computer lab. Ordinarily, the USB – both the thumb drive or “flash drive”, and the cable charger – is a handy device. But, there are other hazards which are easy to miss. You have heard of the basic cybersecurity practices: keep long and complicated passwords which are unique to each site, do not click untrusted email attachments, and only enter sensitive information into trusted websites that are https (or http secured).

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