{"id":7862,"date":"2014-11-22T22:03:51","date_gmt":"2014-11-23T03:03:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dougbittinger.com\/thoughts\/?p=7862"},"modified":"2025-04-21T01:56:39","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T05:56:39","slug":"e-cigarettes-give-pcs-cancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/e-cigarettes-give-pcs-cancer\/","title":{"rendered":"E-Cigarettes Can Give PCs Cancer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"E-Cigarette<\/a>My twin brother by another mother, Mike, sent me the following update about e-cigarettes.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, I just read that the new e-cigarette can give a PC a virus.\u00a0 They need to be charged up to make the vapor stuff, and they charge via USB.\u00a0 And most are made in China, so the charger has a built-in virus.\u00a0 Nice of them, no extra charge.\u00a0 No pun intended.\u00a0 Anyway, now smoking fake cigarettes can be harmful to your PC.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mike knows this stuff: he\u2019s a certified network engineer and a security specialist.\u00a0 He keeps up with all the current threats. I went looking for details.<\/p>\n

A story on social news site Reddit<\/a> says that at least one \u201cvaper\u201d has reported the downside of trusting their e-cigarette manufacturer. An executive discovered a malware infection on his office computer. The source could not be determined. After all traditional sources of infection were investigated the I.T. department started looking into other possibilities.<\/p>\n

The executive\u2019s e-cigarette was charged by a USB cable, so it could be plugged into a computer to juice up. They checked the charger and found malware hardcoded into the device. Plug the e-cig into a computer and it transferred the malware installer.<\/p>\n

Trojan E-Cigarette<\/h2>\n

The web site DailyMail.Co.UK reports<\/a> the hacker, known online as Jester, predicted this trend in\u00a0March<\/strong>, and said the problem could spread to other devices.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll those desk toys, like the coffee warmer, and the mexican jumping bean thing, all those \u2018office toys\u2019 you can get from \u2018thinkgeek.com\u2019 and similar, that only come with a little USB plug you have no choice but to drop in your PC (whichever PC you are near) they are all made in China,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Rik Ferguson, a security consultant for Trend Micro, says the story is entirely plausible, and something similar has already infected many household gadgets.<\/p>\n

\u201cProduction line malware has been around for a few years, infecting photo frames, MP3 players and more,\u201d he told the\u00a0Guardian<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0recent proof-of-concept attack called ‘BadUSB’, involves reprogramming USB devices at the hardware level, meaning ‘safe’ gadgets could be turned into hacking tools.<\/p>\n

\u201cVery widely spread USB controller chips, including those in thumb drives, have no protection from such reprogramming,\u201d says Berlin-based firm SRLabs, which released the code.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis versatility is also USB\u2019s Achilles heel: Since different device classes can plug into the same connectors, one type of device can turn into a more capable or malicious type without the user noticing,\u201d SRL claims.<\/p>\n

‘No effective defenses from USB attacks are known.<\/p>\n

\u00a0My Advice to You<\/h2>\n

\"AC-USB<\/a>If you have a USB device like these e-Cigarettes or some desk toy that does not have<\/em> to plug into a computer, use the more cumbersome option of a USB-110 adaptor and plug it into a wall outlet instead. If you have a data storage device, camera, electronic picture frame, etc. that must plug into your computer to do its job, make sure you have top-notch virus protection and anti-malware software installed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My twin brother by another mother, Mike, sent me the following update about e-cigarettes. “Oh, I just read that the new e-cigarette can give a PC a virus.  They need to be charged up to make the vapor stuff, and they charge via USB.  And most are made in China, so the charger has a … Continue reading “E-Cigarettes Can Give PCs Cancer”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[24],"class_list":["post-7862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-educational","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7862"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19855,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7862\/revisions\/19855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}