Written by: Bikarsha Ojha - 2022005, Grade X
Posted on: 06 September, 2020
We all know about USB. known formally as Universal Serial Bus as a portable device to transfer data easily from a computer to another desktop easily which was developed in 1994 by USB implementers forum, co-developed by Ajay Bhatt. This was a big technological step as large sizes of data can be transferable, unlike the Floppy Disc which had approximately small storage for transferring space.
As the development has increased in the technological sector, USBs had just gone from big to small in size but large in storage where till 512GB can be stored by a special flash drive known as DataTraveler HyperX Predator 3.0 which is in process of 1-2TB in later development.
As USB had come further, An unknown developer(Supposedly from Russia or Hong Kong), had developed a new type of USB known as “The USB Killer”. As the name suggests, it is built to destroy not only USB ports but the entire computer. As for the term, It is not widely illegal as it is used by many companies(mostly security companies) to test their PCs if it can handle such high voltage if a sudden spike occurs without any measures. The cases where a computer just “dies” is when they have potentially unprotected ports. The working mechanism of a USB Killer has 5 small capacitors which take only 5 volts to charge themselves and transmit a sudden 240 volts to the Laptop/Desktop. This determines the mechanism of the PC if it can handle such electrical spikes or will it fry everything(including the motherboard and the batteries) killing everything which takes a lot of amounts to repair or just straight up replace the desktop which the user had been experimenting on.
This device had been used for complete professional use. This determines the capacity and the mechanism of the PC if it can handle such electricity. There has been little to no information of any attacks by the USB killers on other desktop computers until in 2019 when a former Indian Student in College of Saint Rose named Vishwanath Akuthota had pleaded guilty of destroying 59 computers with an estimated budget of $50.000. In the end, he had to pay $58.471. As rare these cases are, People are still ill-advised to use such USB devices that are found randomly in random areas with no signs of safety measures before using the USB drive.
