You probably aren't a spy.
You're probably working at a desk. Your last trip abroad was probably a holiday, rather than a covert operation to assassinate a head of state. Your mobile is probably made by Apple or Samsung, and won't explode if enter a specific key sequence.
All of which means you probably won't have a use for the USB Killer v2.0.
The creation of a Russian security researcher known only as "Dark Purple" (no relation to any seventies prog bands), this little stick of computer pain doesn't use a fancy virus, exploitive coding or any malware. Once plugged into a laptop, computer or anything with a USB port, it unleashes 220 volts through the system's USB interface, apparently frying the poor machine in seconds.
In the above test, Dark Purple reports that the USB Killer did no lasting damage to a machine's hard drive, but fried the laptop's motherboard.
As such, this 'deadly' USB stick won't destroy any valuable data, but create the inconvenience of breaking your hardware - which isn't very Bond. For anyone with sensitive data they might wish to destroy in a moment's notice, this isn't the computer suicide pill you might be looking for (you'd be better off storing things on an external hard drive and dunking it in a bucket/killing it with fire/shooting it).
Still, it's deadly enough to put a machine beyond the cure-all fix of turning it on and off again. Well done Dark Purple.
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[Via: Graham Cluley]
