Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by __jf__ 981 days ago
Tom Uren and grugq did a podcast on this recently in Risky Business News [0] I think the main point was that these attacks are physical, don't scale very well, and are untargeted because they depend on luck, so an adversary probably would use more efficient techniques. Unless of course these USB charging points happen to magically cluster around important secret carrying government buildings or other points of interest.

[0] https://risky.biz/BTN46/

1 comments

Charging stations are ubiquitous in China, widely used, and they're internet connected - to facilitate payment. Every mall, hotel, and many other businesses have these placed strategically (in front of restrooms, in the gym, etc.)

Not quite a physical attack anymore if you pwn these remotely.

Granted if the situation in the US is still the same as Europe's rather than China's, it's a nonissue. Last I checked few people there ever used these.