KWkweks·Mar 2, 2020
For those who may be curious, how two very similar products (USBNinja and the O.MG Cable) exist, there is a bit of history.
Both products are based on the concept of a HID attack: most modern OSs (MacOS, Linux, Windows, Android...) trust HID (Human Interface Devices) implicitly. This means that when you plug in a Keyboard, Mouse, Storage device or Network device, they work instantly. You don't need to install drivers or explicitly enable them. The newly attached devices work instantly - even on a locked device.
The advantage here is obvious. The disadvantage is more subtle, but was exploited by the Hak5 "Rubber Ducky". By emulating a HID device (or even worse, multiple HID devices simultaneously..) - you could essentially control a computer and deploy / execute anything, as if you had full control of the device.
"The Classic" PoC is the W
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indows "Creds" attack [1] - which unlocks locked windows machines - later turned very, very nuclear by Samy Kamkar with PoisonTap [2], which essentially exfiltrates data, exfiltrates cookies and credentials, and permanently backdoors a locked PC.
The idea of moving from a dedicated device (Rubber Ducky) to an embedded device first came to surface with the BadUSB device [3].
The idea of moving it into a cable came from the NSA, a device called COTTONMOUTH [4][6], which was leaked during the NSA document dumps [5]. MG, the designer of BadUSB, built a prototype of this with today's resources.
RRG, the company behind the latest iterations of Proxmark 3, ChameleonTiny, etc prototyped and built the USBNinja. Their device is built on the Arduino (Ducky) framework, as opposed to the ESP32 Framework.
There is / was drama between MG (behind BadUSB) and RRG / Kevin Mitnik; MG claimed that it was his prototyped device was brought to market first by RRG.
Drama aside, both products exist, both serve the same purposes, and from a hardware point of view, they're both incredible devices that we could have never imagined 10 years ago.
Personally, I find the framework of the USBNinja to be slightly better in practical purposes, (Non-degraded USB-C charging and performance, non detectable wifi etc). I believe there is also a "pro" version slated for release that adds significant functionality.
Source / disclaimer for all of this: I source products for https://Lab401.com - so we performed a deep dive on both products before deciding which to stock. I also had the chance to visit the factories and witness the prototyping - absolutely fascinating.
It's worth underlining that when the COTTONMOUTH device came out in 2009, it had a value of over 1MUSD. 10 years later, arguably better and smaller devices are literally 0.01% the price, and you can have one in your hand. Progress is amazing.
[1] https://shop.hak5.org/blogs/news/15-second-password-hack-mr-...
[2] https://samy.pl/poisontap/
[3] https://github.com/O-MG/DemonSeed
[4] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/12/insid...
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_ANT_catalog
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NSA_COTTONMOUTH-I.jpg