

Darpa Funds Hack Machine You’d Never Notice - alister
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/07/pwnplug/

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Shank
I suppose it's a neat concept, though I still don't get why you'd use this
over another means if you already have building physical access.

Assuming you're pentesting, either you're trying to get someone to willingly
plug it in (to ethernet and all power stuff too?), have physical access
yourself (in which case why not use something cheaper), or are already allowed
in (why add another device?)

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Corrado
One example I can see is something like testing branches of a financial
institution. Send out 100 of these things to branches all over the country and
just have the manager plug them in. You don't even have to tell them what it
is.

It's much easier and cost effective than to roll a truck and when your
finished you can mail them to another branch. Or just leave them in place for
future spot checks.

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jbuzbee
Anyone else think that device is a disaster waiting to happen? The example
shows sending a "whoami" command to the device via SMS, and then the device
responds "root" via SMS. Uh, what's to keep someone else from hijacking it via
SMS for their own purposes? A "bad guy" would have to figure out that there's
one on the network, but it would still concern me to have a remote-controlled
device on the network that's open to arbitrary SMS-sent commands.

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greenyoda
"If you saw this bad boy under your desk, would you say anything?"

Well, at this point, wouldn't anyone who has read this article be suspicious
of a power strip under their desk that wasn't there yesterday and maybe even
had nothing plugged into it?

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miahi
Why would you trust hardware you are not really sure you control (do you know
all the backdoors and bugs in that thing?) and knowingly give it access to
your networks? It's already a hacking power tool, it only needs the hacker.

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antiterra
For the same reason you would trust a security consultant to attempt to
penetrate your network's defenses and find deficiencies. Any of your employees
could bring in a similar device, what are you going to do about it?

With a real one in place, you can come up with a strategy. Maybe your IT team
comes up with regular sweeps for cell signals, then the security consultant
decides that the cell signal is only active during short periods of time in
the day. Perhaps you secure your power sockets, and then the consultant uses
the fact that your janitor needs a plug to vacuum and doesn't find a power
strip suspicious.

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ktizo
So, Darpa is providing remotely accessible hacking devices to companies as
test equipment and encouraging them to install them in sensitive locations of
their buildings. Is this some advanced form of comedy security trolling on the
part of Darpa? Like an "If you install this, then you have failed the test
already", kind of thing.

