Introduction:
This is USB Kill, and it is the most dangerous piece of tech that I own. Let me show you how it works. All right, I'm just going to plug this thing in, and we're going for it. Simple as that—super, super-duper dead. So, these may look like innocuous USB sticks, but inside, they are filled with capacitors. This is the V1 that we did a Post on all the way back in 2017.
The way this works is it has a bunch of little capacitors, so when you plug it in, it charges those capacitors via power from the USB port and then turns around, sending all that power directly back into the device, in many cases straight up killing it.
Now, before you get any bright ideas about how this would be a hilarious prank to play on your friends, keep in mind that this can actually be illegal if you use it to destroy other people's technology. Someone tried this at a school and killed a bunch of school computers. Guess what? He went to jail and had to pay like a $50,000 fine. Now, the reason that a device like this exists is purely for defensive purposes.
So, theoretically, if you are a manufacturer of any number of devices that have a USB port, you would buy one of these things to make sure that whatever shielding that you've done, whatever grounding you've done on your USB, is actually sufficient to support, you know, protecting against a device like this.
So, what I really want to do is use this newest version of the USB Kill on an unfortunate number of devices to see exactly how far we've come over the last eight years with devices that have USB-C, that have theoretically better shielding, and how many are going to succumb to the most basic looking USB stick you've ever seen.
So, while I hope that most of these devices survive, I will be making a donation for the value of any devices destroyed to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is a great organization that does a lot of work around the internet and computers. But, like, if I can say anything before I get started, it is this: do not try this at home.
I am doing this testing so you do not have to, and hopefully post serves as a warning not only to you, who maybe want to be a little bit suspicious of your friend walking around with that black USB stick, but for manufacturers who read this post and hopefully decide to put a little bit more effort into defending their devices against such a simple basic attack.
Let's give it a try, shall we? So, our first proper test is going to be with this Gateway Windows laptop. Now, this is significantly newer than the Chromebook that we just tested, and I will say that while I have low expectations for this, I'm going to try something that's a little bit different compared to the first generation of USB Kill. The normal mode.
Basic:
You plug it in, it charges those capacitors, and sends it back. Because this has a built-in battery, theoretically, I can just trigger it, and it will just send that power even to a completely offline device. So, let's see what happens. Here goes nothing. So, now that it is plugged in, I’m going to trigger USB Kill. There it went, hear it all right. I'm going to stop it.
It will send power for as long as I want via the app. So, what you just heard, that click, that was all that power coming through and likely blowing something on this system. So, I’m going to disconnect the USB Kill, and I’m going to try to fire this up... nothing. Nothing at all. I mean, that’s terrifying, if I’m honest with you, because, like, theoretically, you could come back to your computer that is completely dead and have no idea what went wrong. Like, there are no signs of anything.
I smelt something for like a split second, and now it’s kind of gone. Okay, let’s move on to some devices that hopefully are a little bit more robust than this very affordable Windows device. Yikes. Next up, we have one of the most durable laptops I have ever seen.
I would hope the Dell have put in the engineering resources to prevent against an attack like this, but just because it is physically tough has no bearing on whether they actually did the work to properly ground and shield USB ports. So, let’s give it a try. So, I’m going to use this in classic mode, which means that because the laptop is on, it should kill it within two seconds, or Dell have done a good job of defending it. All right, here we go.
I heard two cracks; it's almost like it pushed through one side and then went all the way through to the other. Wow, I mean, I can try to get this thing to boot up, but that looked—oh no, hell no, dude! Ooh, extra fried. Wow, I thought this one actually might have a shot.
If you want to see a follow-up post to this, let me know. I might actually try to open some of these up or find someone who can help me get to the bottom of exactly what is dying on these systems. But like, wow, that is one rugged laptop that was absolutely no match for the USB Kill.
That is legitimately terrifying. Oh man, this video is going to get expensive real quick. I thought some of these were going to survive. It's for a good cause! It is for a good cause. Likewise, it’s all for a good cause. The more things that die, the more money I’m going to donate.
Features:
But wow, that is... okay, all right, well, let’s just keep it rolling. So, next, I’m going to do something very unorthodox. I’m going to try a USB-C charger. Now, general word of advice: don’t trust USB sticks you find, and also don’t trust random USB ports.
But I want to see what happens when we connect the USB Kill to a charger. Um, can someone find the fire extinguisher? Lord, why are you the firefighter? I don’t like this. Okay, no, I like starting the fires. No, okay, again, I will just give you a fair warning: do not try this at home. We are doing this purely for educational purposes, and I mean that.
I want to know what happens here. Hopefully nothing, because there is a lot of electronics in something like this, which is a little G charger, but let’s find out. Okay, 3, 2, 1... interesting. So, what I assume is that if it doesn’t detect a signal, it won’t work by default. So, I’m going to try manually triggering this now.
So, I’m going to plug it in again, and we’re going to send it. Ready? Okay, I heard a click. Nothing’s on fire, so we’re going to unplug that now. Let’s, I guess, just plug a normal USB-C into this and see if the charger still functions. Absolutely nothing. It killed the charger too.
Oh my God. So, that’s the power of this latest USB Kill, because previously it only worked when you plugged it directly into a device where it would take the power and send it back. But because this can be manually triggered, and there’s also other stuff I didn’t get into—there’s like a little magnetic ring that you can wipe over this thing, you can set programs like this thing is ridiculously dangerous—it has killed every single thing we’ve tried.
Oh my God, this one’s going to hurt. This is a Nintendo Switch Lite. As we all know, the best version of the Switch. I have modified this one. I did not do a great job of the modifications, which is why it has been selected for this particular excursion.
Conclusion:
This is fine. This is no big deal; you know, the MacBook's still working—it didn’t sort of skip a beat—but as soon as this runs out of charge, it’s dead forever. So, I’m going to use a USB-C dongle. I’m going to try with the keyboard. I’m also going to try to plug it differently and restart it. I want to give this a fair shot before we totally call it dead, but wow.
Wow, this video has been a roller coaster. Nothing. No. So there’s no data to these ports either. Out of all the devices that we’ve tested today, the winner—and the only one that survived unscathed—is the Z Flip 3. Who would have guessed that?
Thank you very much for reading this post. Do not try this at home. This has hopefully been enlightening for you to understand that something as innocuous as a little USB stick that you find on the ground could be incredibly, incredibly dangerous. And this is a plea to manufacturers who watch this video: if you make a product that has a USB port, you should test it with the USB Killer and do whatever you can to defend against this.
Of course, we will be donating a very large sum to the EFF to make up for some of the devices that we have killed here. I have got to sit down after this one, man. This was the most stressful video I’ve shot in a long, long time. Whatever you do, don’t trust the USB stick—it’s not safe.
