Tag Archive for: Cable

O.MG Elite Cable has power of a $20,000 hacking tool; can compromise iPhone, Android, Mac, PC

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Shown off at this year’s Def Con is an unassuming and powerful hacking tool, the O.MG Elite cable. With the physical appearance of a standard Lightning or USB-C cable, the hidden modifications mean this cable can log keystrokes, perform attacks, and even transmit data stealthily from air-gapped devices with its own WiFi network.

Seen by The Verge‘s Corin Faife at Def Con, here’s how creator MG decribes the creation:

“It’s a cable that looks identical to the other cables you already have,” explains MG, the cable’s creator. “But inside each cable, I put an implant that’s got a web server, USB communications, and Wi-Fi access. So it plugs in, powers up, and you can connect to it.”

One of the powerful things about the new O.MG Elite compared to its predecessors is the advanced network features mean it can handle bidirectional communications.

O.MG Elite can perform attacks and read data that’s passed through the cable, say between iPhone and Mac, or almost any other combination of devices as it comes in Lightning to USB-A, Lightning to USB-C, C to C, and microUSB versions.

Creator MG says that up until now, a cable like this would have sold for as much as $20,000. But it’s going from $180+ to early access customers.

Attacks, keylogger, and built-in WiFi

O.MG Elite is able to carry out keystroke injection attacks – which makes a device think it’s a keyboard typing commands. That opens up vulnerabilites like command line attacks.

“It also contains a keylogger: if used to connect a keyboard to a host computer, the cable can record every keystroke that passes through it and save up to 650,000 key entries in its onboard storage for retrieval later. Your password? Logged. Bank account details? Logged. Bad draft tweets you didn’t want to send? Also logged.”

X-ray highligting the implanted chip in O.MG Elite

As noted by The Verge, a big part of how scarily capable this cable can be is the built-in WiFi to silently send back data to an attacker – even on air-gapped devices.

“Many ‘exfiltration’ attacks — like the Chrome password theft mentioned above — rely on sending data out over the target machine’s internet connection, which runs the…

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New Caledonia and Vanuatu sign memorandum for marine cable

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A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed between the governments of Vanuatu and New Caledonia last Friday afternoon effectively paves the way for a second submarine cable instalment from Port Vila to Lifou, in New Caledonia.

New Caledonia president Louis Mapou and Vanuatu prime minister Bob Loughman exchanging a memorandum of understanding which paves the way for a second submarine cable installment in New Caledonia.

New Caledonia president Louis Mapou and Vanuatu prime minister Bob Loughman exchanging a memorandum of understanding which paves the way for a second submarine cable instalment in New Caledonia.
Photo: Supplied

Interchange Limited (ICL) General Manager Willie Karie says the signing is a big step towards internet connectivity, internet security and overseas expansion.

Karie said the agreement showed the backing of both governments to facilitate ICL’s second marine cable to Lifou, New Caledonia.

ICL will work with the Office des Postes et Télécommunications de Nouvelle-Calédonie (OPT-NC) towards the initiative.

Both governments put pen to paper, witnessed by government officials and other stakeholders.

Karie confirmed that New Caledonia was keen to partner with Vanuatu on this project. He confirmed that the Landing Agreement was in place and the process would be completed next week.

ICL acknowledged the government and all partners for their support towards this initiative.

The external relations advisor to the president of the government of New Caledonia, Charles Wea, said the signing agreement followed a request to the New Caledonia government to facilitate and secure the internet development in Vanuatu.

Wea said they were happy to be part of the agreement.

He added this was important for the people of both countries. The MOU was signed by Vanuatu prime minister Bob Loughman and the president of territorial government of New Caledonia, Louis Mapou.

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SATAn Turns Hard Drive Cable Into Antenna To Defeat Air-Gapped Security

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It seems like [Mordechai Guri]’s lab at Ben-Gurion University is the place where air-gapped computers go to die, or at least to give up their secrets. And this hack using a computer’s SATA cable as an antenna to exfiltrate data is another example of just how many side-channel attacks the typical PC makes available.

The exploit, deliciously designated “SATAn,” relies on the fact that the SATA 3.0 interface used in many computers has a bandwidth of 6.0 Gb/s, meaning that manipulating the computer’s IO would make it possible to transmit data from an air-gapped machine at around 6 GHz. It’s a complicated exploit, of course, and involves placing a transmitting program on the target machine using the usual methods, such as phishing or zero-day exploits. Once in place, the transmitting program uses a combination of read and write operations on the SATA disk to generate RF signals that encode the data to be exfiltrated, with the data lines inside the SATA cable acting as antennae.

SATAn is shown in action in the video below. It takes a while to transmit just a few bytes of data, and the range is less than a meter, but that could be enough for the exploit to succeed. The test setup uses an SDR — specifically, an ADALM PLUTO — and a laptop, but you can easily imagine a much smaller package being built for a stealthy walk-by style attack. [Mordechai] also offers a potential countermeasure for SATAn, which basically thrashes the hard drive to generate RF noise to mask any generated signals.

While probably limited in its practical applications, SATAn is an interesting side-channel attack to add to [Dr. Guri]’s list of exploits. From optical exfiltration using security cameras to turning power supplies into speakers, the vulnerabilities just keep piling up.

Thanks to [chuckt] for the tip.

[via Bleeping Computer]

 


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SATAn hack can steal data directly from your SATA cable

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Researchers at the University of the Negev, Israel, have published a paper that demonstrates how a hacker could extract data from an otherwise secure system via its SATA cable. The attack uses the SATA cable itself as a form of wireless transmitter, and the data it carries can be intercepted as a form of radio signal in the 6GHz band. The attack is appropriately referred to as SATAn.

The researchers published a paper here (opens in new tab)(via Tom’s Hardware (opens in new tab)). They successfully demonstrated the technique and showed it in a video that’s included above. It has to be said that this kind of attack is complicated and requires specific malware to be installed on the target machine. It requires specialized shellcode to modify file system activity that generates identifiable radio signals from SATA cables.

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