5 ms·

There are also a lot of 'smart wifi plugs' which use the same chipset (although with less RAM), which can be bought for ~$20: http://www.anites.com/2015/01/hac

There are also a lot of 'smart wifi plugs' which use the same chipset (although with less RAM), which can be bought for ~$20: http://www.anites.com/2015/01/hacking-kankun-smart-wifi-plug.html http://www.anites.com/2015/01/hacking-kankun-smart-wifi-plug...

Nursie 11y ago
Interesting. IS it wrong that my first thought was that they look benign and unobtrusive enough that they could be easily socially engineered into somewhere to start scanning for vulnerabilities... ? When flashed with the appropriate firmware of course.
- digi_owl 11y ago
  https://xkcd.com/1494/ https://xkcd.com/1494/ Seemed relevant.
  - Nursie 11y ago
    LOL. Not sure it's 100% applicable, but certainly my proposal would indeed by illegal black-hattery, unless done by a legit pen-tester. I'd never do such a thing, but I might now be more aware that the little plastic block attached to the socket over there could easily be a cheap, full linux system running some sort of metasploit/neopwn variant...
    - leejoramo 11y ago
      We are now beyond assuming that you can "see" the tiny computer over there. You can pretty assume that for example that any electrical device could have one of these concealed in it. That includes electric cords and light bulbs. Additionally these can be hidden in non-electrical objects with small batteries and run for weeks.
      - Nursie 11y ago
        Well this is true, I guess it just struck me that this is a convenient and easily overlooked form-factor, and pretty dirt cheap.
      - ggoss 11y ago
        This is exactly why I dismantle and inspect all 'unimaginably cheap' pieces of tech before using them for their intended purpose. That, and curiosity. There are many clever cost-cutting hacks to be learned that way.
        DanBC 11y ago
        One of my favourite youtube channels is BigClivedotcom's, where he takes apart a bunch of cheap gadgets. https://www.youtube.com/user/bigclivedotcom https://www.youtube.com/user/bigclivedotcom
        ggoss 11y ago
        Agreed.
    - lucaspiller 11y ago
      Given that these come from China, maybe they already have that firmware ;)
- ryan-c 11y ago
  People used to use Sheevaplugs for this, e.g. https://www.pwnieexpress.com/product/pwn-plug-elite/ https://www.pwnieexpress.com/product/pwn-plug-elite/
  - Nursie 11y ago
    I remember the talk about it at the time. I still have my sheevaplug at home, I pre-ordered one of the first dev kits and used to be active on one of the plug forums. I don't use it for anything much any more but I did a power-supply replacement a couple of years ago when it blew. That pwn-plug has had some serious mods done to it, with bluetooth, 4G and 802.11 wireless built in! (--edit-- I see now that those are provided by adaptors, not built in to the box, that does reduce its stealthiness somewhat) These new ones are much smaller than that by the looks of things though, seemingly on the scale of socket adaptors, rather than (to an up to date eye) quite a big power brick. Thanks for the link, that was interesting.

Nursie 11y ago

Interesting. IS it wrong that my first thought was that they look benign and unobtrusive enough that they could be easily socially engineered into somewhere to start scanning for vulnerabilities... ? When flashed with the appropriate firmware of course.

digi_owl 11y ago
https://xkcd.com/1494/ https://xkcd.com/1494/ Seemed relevant.
- Nursie 11y ago
  LOL. Not sure it's 100% applicable, but certainly my proposal would indeed by illegal black-hattery, unless done by a legit pen-tester. I'd never do such a thing, but I might now be more aware that the little plastic block attached to the socket over there could easily be a cheap, full linux system running some sort of metasploit/neopwn variant...
  - leejoramo 11y ago
    We are now beyond assuming that you can "see" the tiny computer over there. You can pretty assume that for example that any electrical device could have one of these concealed in it. That includes electric cords and light bulbs. Additionally these can be hidden in non-electrical objects with small batteries and run for weeks.
    - Nursie 11y ago
      Well this is true, I guess it just struck me that this is a convenient and easily overlooked form-factor, and pretty dirt cheap.
    - ggoss 11y ago
      This is exactly why I dismantle and inspect all 'unimaginably cheap' pieces of tech before using them for their intended purpose. That, and curiosity. There are many clever cost-cutting hacks to be learned that way.
      - DanBC 11y ago
        One of my favourite youtube channels is BigClivedotcom's, where he takes apart a bunch of cheap gadgets. https://www.youtube.com/user/bigclivedotcom https://www.youtube.com/user/bigclivedotcom
        ggoss 11y ago
        Agreed.
  - lucaspiller 11y ago
    Given that these come from China, maybe they already have that firmware ;)
ryan-c 11y ago
People used to use Sheevaplugs for this, e.g. https://www.pwnieexpress.com/product/pwn-plug-elite/ https://www.pwnieexpress.com/product/pwn-plug-elite/
- Nursie 11y ago
  I remember the talk about it at the time. I still have my sheevaplug at home, I pre-ordered one of the first dev kits and used to be active on one of the plug forums. I don't use it for anything much any more but I did a power-supply replacement a couple of years ago when it blew. That pwn-plug has had some serious mods done to it, with bluetooth, 4G and 802.11 wireless built in! (--edit-- I see now that those are provided by adaptors, not built in to the box, that does reduce its stealthiness somewhat) These new ones are much smaller than that by the looks of things though, seemingly on the scale of socket adaptors, rather than (to an up to date eye) quite a big power brick. Thanks for the link, that was interesting.