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Spyware, viruses, & security forum: Keyboard hidden hardware?

by: mr_fixxit July 25, 2012 11:28 PM PDT

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Keyboard hidden hardware?

by mr_fixxit - 7/25/12 11:28 PM

I bought a couple of USB computer keyboards at the County Fair. Got home and plugged one in and it seemed to work OK. Then I got a blue screen. Two reboots and then it wouldn't get past "Welcome". Luckily, I have removables on my system, so I made that drive a slave and booted with another drive. Did a scan and found two viruses. My question - Is it possible that guy added some hardware into the keyboard to drop a virus? I took it apart and only found the small circuit board that contains the LEDs and a few other components. Anyone ever heard of someone doing this recently? Maybe just a coincidence?
Seems like a lot of trouble to go to, but who knows the mind of a criminal.
Short of plugging them in again, is there any way to test these keyboards?


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Your common keyboard has a chip and LEDs

by R. Proffitt Moderator - 7/26/12 9:23 AM

In Reply to: Keyboard hidden hardware? by mr_fixxit

So that's not unusual at all. But funny you should ask because there are devices such as http://hakshop.myshopify.com/products/usb-rubber-ducky which are proof you can do very interesting things with the USB HID (keyboard!) interface.

No. I doubt that your keyboards have such.
Bob


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