Testing the malicious USB anecdote

In today’s computer security climate, attacks against computers are becoming increasingly sophisticated and cheaper to execute. In this thesis, we present the results of a study conducted on the University of Illinois campus to determine the effectiveness of dropping 297 “infected” USB flash drives in a public place as an attack vector. A self-report survey given to 71 individuals highlights some of the psychological processes that motivate people to plug in the flash drives. We find that this type of attack is generally effective and relatively insensitive to its precise environmental configuration. Generally, participants expressed desire to return the flash drives to their owners, although our data shows that they also explored the contents of the flash drives on occasion.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Electrical & Computer Engineering

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2016

Author dc:creator

• Tischer, Matthew A

Contributors dc:contributor

• Bailey, Michael

• social engineering
• Universal Serial Bus (USB)

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2015 Matthew Tischer

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/89034

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/89034