Butchered Starbucks charger.

Also...some people outside my circle do not believe they have anything of risk on their "equipment" and if compromised they can "factory reset" their equipment which is fine but these little "bombs" once introduced to your system are sometime or most times on a timer countdown so when near any of your other equipment, transfer can occur.

When you plug your phone into your computer with the charging cord, you can download photos from your phone to your computer. If a port is compromised, there's no limit to what information a hacker could take.You can also buy USB cords that don't have wires to transmit data and prevent anyone highjacking your phone's information.it's best to just rely on your own charger. If your desperate and need to upload your selfie, take your chances."

Short D+ and D- at the Android end, then it'll see it as a charger an pull an amp.

Oh dear, poor Starbucks. Is this how they justify $5 for a cup of coffee?

Gadgetman

The IT departments must really have their work cut out for them these days with trying to stop lesser mortals exposing the systems to ransomware and other malware.

Big Clive

The most interesting thing is the input voltage range. It suggests a switchmode power supply and perhaps a MOSFET instead of a triac for the iron. I've just ordered one from eBay to look at.

Big Clive

That happens anyway. McDonalds has wireless charging pads and little adaptors that contain the pickup coil and a selection of connectors for phones without a pickup coil. Many of them have had the wires torn out of them.

Big Clive

$DAYJOB tends to tell us things like this are a big no-no to use on any work hardware for other reasons unless you're using a usb condom (and $DAYJOB-1 said the same thing, but with more hints about being shown the door if you forgot the order). Frying work hardware through the USB port ain't great, but plugging work hardware into random data lines could be catastrophic for far more nefarious reasons...

Mark Dennehy

This is off topic but I bought a Yotec 967 soldering station from Banggood for $25. I couldn't resist at that price. Can you please get one and do a tear down? I have the same Yihua as you and love it. I opened it up before plugging it in and it appears to be grounded. They even added an Australia to US adapter.

Many Android phones can be taken over with set of vulnerabilities dubbed "ATtention Spanned". LG still haven't patched my phone. A simple defence is to use a usb cable with the data lines disconnected.

Video should be okay for general viewing, I suppose. You don't give people any bad ideas in this video :)

Paul Schuur

Not a regular at such venues but I'll bear in mind the points raised about being careful @ public charge points... I don't think it's worth publishing; might get people thinking along those lines "Let's go and mash some USB sockets for fun"... :-/

Stephen Eyles

There are things you can exploit and “Bad USB” was something they were playing around with a few years ago where an infected USB device could write code to the firmware of a PC. It was only proof of concept as far as I remember but USB is inherently insecure as all devices are trusted equally. I use a USB “condom” which allows charging but no data to pass to my phone. I use it so I can charge from works laptops where I don’t particularly want them to access my personal photos.

The fun you could have with a USB socket that holds a 240v (or higher) charge on a capacitor :D

Phil Collins

Seems a bit cheap-arse to leave it like that with the amount of money Starbucks must rake in.

Matt Tester

"Someone" broke it whilst trying to take it apart. Sure, let's go with that.

evilution

It would have been geekier if I'd had a set of screwdrivers. But having just come through airport security there was no chance of that.

Big Clive

You could do both with the same device when you are capable in programming.

Leon Schutte

I think the malduino is a bit cheaper than the rubber ducky but the effect is the same. When i charge something i only use my own charger. There are charging cables without data connections but you charge very slow using them.

Leon Schutte

Instead of a keyboard protocol, they could emulate an USB host and do the data attack via ADB, a serial debug protocol basically all android phones support. Problem is however that in order to let that work, people have to enable debugging on their phone. Only a very vew idiots would do that.

L3P3

The only thing you have to apologize for is... wait you are good. No problems.

Michael Thompson

Given how well made and easy to install some of the pin-code skimmers are, i would not be surprised if such fake, data stealing usb sockets already exist.

Willem Hengeveld

I remember seeing an episode of a police drama (I think it was a CSI or something like that) which was about a compromised charging point at an airport.

This is why I will only charge power banks from public USB sockets. I know I could rig up a USB compromise attached to a power bank in a normal enclosure I could just glue into place, heck you could probably piggy back off the free WiFi to get the data back.

Charleso

They probably get beat up a lot so they are probably constantly swapping them out. That might explain some some of that wear on the screw heads.

Lostngone

I don't think there's enough electronics geekery in there TBH

Moz in Oz

Probably just generic vandalism. Seems ok to post.

Nani Isobel

Just use the short charging leads comes with various power bank, they are also don't have the data pins connected

Nguyen Quang Minh

When the screw heads strip away like that, it's called 'cam out'. Some screws are even designed to do that. Thanks, AvE, for that knowledge!

That’s why I use a USB Condom (otherwise known as a data blocker) where the data pins just don’t exist to the male side. This way there is no way to run those rubber ducky or other attacks on my device if I’m charging from an unknown supply. Nice little vid though

You have an evil mind. Carry on!

This is a perfect backup video for when you get those dreaded strikes :)