How risky is to let someone connect a smartphone for charging it?
Could someone intentionally or unintentionally contaminate a fully updated and patched Windows 10 or Ubuntu laptop?
asked Oct 3, 2019 at 22:24
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1There are USB adapters without data wires. This way no data can flow between the smartphone and the USB port of the computer. Just search for "USB data blocker" in your favorite search engine.– fgkCommented Oct 4, 2019 at 6:54
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@schroeder: I know. I need an update.– Quora FeansCommented Oct 4, 2019 at 13:26
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Then update the other question, don't post a duplicate– schroeder ♦Commented Oct 4, 2019 at 13:32
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2 Answers
You are basically asking what the risk of connecting an arbitrary USB device to your system is. Because: even if it looks like a smartphone from the outside it can actually be anything on the inside.
This specifically means that the device can physically destroy the USB port like the USB killer. It can also hijack your communication by emulating a network card. It can also emulate a keyboard, mouse or usb mass storage. And these attacks don't even rely on bugs in the operating system, there are likely more dangerous attacks using buffer overflows or similar in drivers (which run in kernel context) etc.
answered Oct 4, 2019 at 7:43
This article, which describes how computers running Windows, MacOS, and Linux operating systems may be vulnerable to a malicious device connected to the system's USB port, states:
The specific vulnerability derives from the fact that peripherals have direct memory access to the unit they are connected to which allows them to bypass the operating system’s security policies.
