keystroke

3 Articles

Inject Keystrokes Any Way You Like With This Bluetooth Keystroke Injector

December 3, 2019 by 10 Comments

[Amirreza Nasiri] sends in this cool USB keystroke injector.

The device consists of an Arduino, a Bluetooth module, and an SD card. When it’s plugged into the target computer the device loads the selected payload from the SD card, compromising the system. Then it does its unique trick which is to switch the injector over to Bluetooth mode. Now the attacker has much more control, albeit local, over the system.

While we would never even be tempted to plug this device into a real computer, we like some of the additional features, like how an added dip switch can be used to select from up to eight different payloads depending on the required attack. The addition of a photo diode is also interesting, and makes us dream of all sorts of impractical movie hacker scenarios. [Amirreza] says it’s to trigger when the person leaves the room and turns the lights off.

[Amirreza] has all the code and design files on the GitHub. There are also a few payload examples, which should be fun to hack on. After all, one of life’s pleasures is to find new ways to mess with your friends.

This USB Drive Will Self-Destruct After Ruining Your Computer

January 19, 2018 by 35 Comments

Who would have thought that you could light up pyrotechnics on USB power? This USB keystroke injector that blows up after it’s used proves the concept.

Fully aware that this is one of those “just because you can doesn’t mean you should” projects, [MG] takes pains to point out that his danger dongle is just for dramatic effect, like a prop for a movie or the stage. In fact, he purposely withholds details on the pyrotechnics and concentrates on the keystroke injection aspect, potentially nasty enough by itself, as well as the dongle’s universal payload launching features. We’re a little bummed, because the confetti explosion (spoiler!) was pretty neat.

The device is just an ATtiny85 and a few passives stuffed into an old USB drive shell, along with a MOSFET to trigger the payload. If you eschew the explosives, the payload could be anything that will fit in the case. [MG] suggests that if you want to prank someone, an obnoxious siren might be a better way to teach your mark a lesson about plugging in strange USB drives.

While this isn’t the most dangerous thing you can do with a USB port, it could be right up there with that rash of USB killer dongles from a year or so ago. All of these devices are fun “what ifs”, but using them on anything but your own computers is not cool and possibly dangerous. Watching the smoke pour out of a USB socket definitely drives home the point that you shouldn’t plug in that thumbdrive that you found in the bathroom at work, though.

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KeyMouSerial Solves Your Raspberry Pi Keyboard Problems

June 27, 2015 by 36 Comments

All laptops have a working keyboard and mouse built into them, the only problem is that you can’t use these tools on other computers that don’t have them. At least, until now. [Peter] has created the KeyMouSerial in order to use his laptop’s keyboard and mouse as physical devices on his Raspberry Pi, finally freeing the bonds holding our laptops’ human interface devices back.

The software for KeyMouSerial copies keystroke and mouse information and sends this out via a serial port on his laptop (using a USB to serial adapter). From there the information is translated by an Arduino into HID commands which are sent via USB to the target computer, in this case a Raspberry Pi. It’s a pretty elegant solution to carrying a bulky keyboard and mouse along just for a Raspberry Pi, or for any computer that might not have access to a network and SSH.

[Peter] has also been working on using his iPod as a serial-to-USB converter, so if you’re a Rockbox developer and want to help out then drop him a line. All of the software is available (for Windows, Mac, or Linux) including the Arduino sketch if you want to try this software out for yourself. And, if you don’t want to turn a computer into a keyboard and want to go the other direction and turn a keyboard into a computer, that is also an option.