A Secret Service agent inserted a USB drive infected with malware into his laptop [title truncated]

Business Insider ^ | April 8, 2019 | liza Relman

[edwinland]

A US Secret Service agent inserted a USB drive infected with "malicious malware" into his laptop after the hardware was confiscated from a Chinese woman who was arrested late last month after attempting to gain entry to President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort.

Agent Samuel Ivanovich testified in court on Monday that he put the thumb drive into his own computer, and it began installing files in a "very out-of-the-ordinary" way. He quickly stopped his analysis of the drive, the Miami Herald reported.

[LeonardFMason]

“A hidden syringe? Let me inject myself to see what it might be.”

Good Lord. God protect the POTUS.

[Sooth2222]

Director? He could run for President!

[InterceptPoint]

OK Smart Guys.

Is it possible to load the equivalent of an autoexec.bat file on a thumb drive and have it start executing without any action by the user?

The news reports infer that you can. I have my doubts.

[Soros Billions]

or some nakids

[ifinnegan]

“Is it possible to load the equivalent of an autoexec.bat file on a thumb drive and have it start executing without any action by the user?”

Of course.

[dinodino]

Yep, I can well imagine!

[Pilsner]

First step would be to create an image then lock away the drive as evidence. Then start analyzing copies of the image.

Exactly. Plug the actual thumb drive into your laptop and how can you prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the virus went from the thumb drive to your laptop, and not the other way around?

[KC_Conspirator]

Effing moron.

[Dacula]

Think of all those ‘free’ USB drives that companies give out. Darn scary.

“Is it possible to load the equivalent of an autoexec.bat file on a thumb drive and have it start executing without any action by the user?”

Of course.

[Celtic Conservative]

Put it in a evidence bag, tag it, log it, initial it and let the supervisors worry about it from there. I know that one, and I’m just a retired lowly prison guard. Too smart by half, some of these fedcops.

CC

[Flaming Conservative]

Beatings will continue until morale improves, too.😉

[Chode]

[taxcontrol]

the fact of the matter is that the bulk majority of the “security professionals” in the US today are woefully undertrained and lack useful experience.

I am in total agreement. I work as a cyber security architect and cant tell you how many executives and Sr level titles I run into that have NO CLUE about cyber security. Sadly, the majority of our customers are banks.

[InterceptPoint]

Of course.
+++++
You are correct - up to a point. But it looks to me that some sort of AutoPlay must be toggled ON for a USB device to begin execution on insertion. This’s an Operating System function.

I still believe that it is not possible to override an AutoPlay setting of OFF by anything you can load on a thumb drive.

But I’ve been wrong before so it could happen again.

[taxcontrol]

short answer - yes

[Maris Crane]

Phew..good. thanks

[piasa]

A US Secret Service agent inserted a USB drive infected with "malicious malware" into his laptop after the hardware was confiscated from a Chinese woman

And people say turkeys are stupid...

[sparklite2]

US Secret Service agent inserted a USB drive infected
 with "malicious malware" into his laptop



"You know those Chinese Trojan horses that sneak into
your computer?"
"Yeah."
"And how they capture your keystrokes to send back to
hackers?"
"Oh, I hate those."
"And how the keystrokes give out passwords to your
bank accounts so the Chinese can take all your money?"
"Oh, boy, do I."
"Well, I took a thumb drive ..."
"Yeah?"
"... and stuck in into my laptop..."
"Yeah?"
"... and clicked OK on all the popups..."
"Oh, boy."
"... and now I don't have a penny to my name."
"Oh, jeez,  I hate when that happens."
"Yeah, it's the pits."

---

[Bommer]

Maybe that why “Tex” Alles decided today to resign. If your men are too damn stupid to know how to protect from cyber security, they may be too damn stupid to protect real people.

[TChad]

Is it possible to load the equivalent of an autoexec.bat file on a thumb drive and have it start executing without any action by the user?

See the thread below.

https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3211746/posts