Security Audit Kit In A Mouse

Sometimes it helps to have an entire set of tools with you to tackle a problem, and sometimes it helps to take the discreet route. [StenoPlasma] took the latter of these approaches, and stuffed a USB hub, a 16 GB flash drive, and an Atheros based USB wireless adapter into a regular looking USB mouse to make a Linux bootable system in a mouse. Because he chose the Atheros adapter, he is also capable of doing packet injection with tools like Aircrack-ng, which can invaluable in a security audit or (white hat) hacking situation.

This is the only photo we have, so it could be possible that the mouse is no more than a mouse, however we know all of what [StenoPlasma] claims is 100% possible, so we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt, and hope this inspires others to hack up your own mouse kits. Be sure to check out the full parts list after the break.

Parts:

  • Targus USB 2.0 4-Port Bend-a-Hub (Stripped and re-soldered)
  • Belkin USB 10′ Extension Cord (with the extension USB in place to make it easy for me to change cable lengths)
  • IOGEAR Atheros Wireless B/G Injectable Cracking Adapter
  • Corsair Voyager Mini 16 GB Thumb Drive
  • Logitech MX310 Wired Optical Mouse

23 thoughts on “Security Audit Kit In A Mouse

  1. That is an awesome idea. I just found about 4 USB hubs and about 6 mice I wasn’t using as I packed to move. When I get back home I might just have to build one of these.

    Anyone got a link on the Atheros WiFi bit? Haven’t been able to find one that wasn’t g-only or n-only.

  2. Bah, I have a 16GB microSD slot hidden inside a USB mouse. The SD card is connected to a USB hub chip that is only activated when you do the correct sequence of mouse clicks (uses a small PIC). This is better because noone even knows its there until you activate it :D

  3. @Jake, nice idea!

    I came up with something similar a while back, but in my case it used a magnetic sensor as the trigger.
    The original plan was to multibank an SD card so it could be set as “1 of 4” or “3 of 4” etc with a simple magnet wave past the device.

    Would also work for making a super pendrive with several different internal drives and LiveCDs etc on each.

  4. The only thing that I’d have to suggest is that he puts a longer USB cable on it so that it doesn’t need an extension cable on it, because that looks uber suspicious.

  5. @ups
    Instructions not necessary, it’s really simple:
    1 – Get a 2+ port USB hub on a chip from your favorite supplier, connect the incoming USB connection to the chip, as well as to your SD USB adapter and the mouse’s PCB
    2 – Sample a really simple microcontroller
    3 – Wire the micro to the buttons of your choice
    4 – Wire the micro to the chip enable line of the SD reader’s control IC

    So, when you enter the correct combination, the SD reader IC is enabled and appears on the USB bus. Up to that point, the only things you’ll see w/the mouse connected is an additional USB hub, and the mouse. Mine is in a logitech G5 and it works well. There was plenty of space in that mouse to fit everything in there. I used one of the side buttons to turn it back off. I think it would be sweet to be able for it to automatically disconnect when you eject it in windows, but I never took it that far.

    @Frogz
    I think you have me confused with someone else? The last time I played Half Life was about 10 years ago.

  6. To most secret button combo sd reader

    That has a great fault:
    Live usb requires the usb to be connected at startup. That would require you to press the combo really fast, as some motherboards only check for the presence of the device when opening the menu to seleck boot source at startup.

    You would either need to input the combo fast when starting up, or have a separate battery for the microcontroller.

  7. Well, after seeing how cramped it would be and looking inside some of my hubs I think I’m going to opt for the hacker’s toolkit KEYBOARD as I have much more room in there.

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