Protect your PC against the BadUSB attack on Linux and Windows

October 12, 2014

At the Black Hat conference this year researchers from Berlin-based Security Research Labs (SRLabs) showed an attack method they called “BadUSB“, which allowed them, with manipulated USB device firmwares (e.g. from a USB Stick), to simulate an keyboard. With this keyboard they executed commands on the victims computer without he/she knowing it. The victim just inserted a USB stick to copy some data …. but the new keyboard executes some commands in the background.

To protect yourself against such an attack the computer needs to configured in a way that it does not bind any newly added device as new keyboard without asking the user. For Linux there is a kernel feature starting with 2.6.13-rc3 ( = since 2005) which allows to bind and unbind drivers from devices manually from user space. More information can be found on this topic here and here. And this blog post from Christian Vogel shows how to use it against BadUSB. What is currently missing is a simple GUI program which allows you to allow/deny devices with on click.

On the Windows site there is already such a program. This freeware program is made by the German security vendor (e.g. anti virus software) G DATA and is called “G DATA USB KEYBOARD GUARD” and can be downloaded from here. After installing you’ll be prompted following screen if a new keyboard is inserted.

USB_Guard