Vratislav Holub Nowadays, we have a number of various technological gadgets at our fingertips, which can make our everyday life much more pleasant. But the truth remains that unfortunately nothing is perfect, and we should therefore be aware of various risks. In addition, this can also be represented by an ordinary Lightning cable at first glance. According to the latest information, a security expert known as MG has developed a completely ordinary-looking Lightning cable, but it can detect strokes from a connected keyboard and then wirelessly send them to a hacker.
It could be interest you
Moreover, it is not the first time that MG has come up with a similar cable. Already two years ago, he managed to develop a version that practically worked in reverse and thus enabled a hacker to wirelessly hack into the USB port of any connected device and thus take control over it, for example over an iPhone, iPad or Mac. The cable was called O.MG and was even mass produced and sold under the Hak5 umbrella. Hak5 is a company that specializes in selling tools related to cyber security.
Expected iPad mini likely to switch from Lightning to USB-C:
Gallery
But now the expert has taken it to a new level. The first version of the cable was in the USB-A/Lightning version, and with the transition to USB-C, it was possible to hear from the ranks of apple users that the newer standard is miles away and cannot be similarly abused. In this regard, the main problem was the size of its connector, which is simply significantly smaller and there is no room for the introduction of a special chip. For this reason, MG created a new generation - precisely with a USB-C terminal. The new O.MG Keylogger Cable can therefore record and transmit keystrokes from the connected keyboard. But of course such a cable also works quite normally and it is therefore possible to power the device or synchronize iTunes via it.
What are the risks?
With this newly developed cable, the expert showed that practically nothing is impossible, and even an ordinary cable can be the thing that steals, for example, your passwords, or even worse, payment card numbers. At the same time, however, it is necessary to draw attention to a relatively important fact. In this case, the hacker cannot obtain data about what you type via the software keyboard on the screen or the Bluetooth keyboard. It must necessarily be a keyboard connected via this cable, which is highly unlikely in practice.
Nevertheless, there is a risk that should be pointed out. There is still the question of whether the possibilities of a similarly modified cable cannot be moved to a higher level. This situation generally points to the importance of using genuine MFi cables. You can never be 100% sure that a non-original cable will not damage your device or otherwise break it. In any case, you don't have to be afraid of the O.MG cable. Its capabilities are quite limited, and the hacker would also have to be within the same range as Wi-Fi. At the same time, the attacker cannot see your screen and only gets information about the keystrokes themselves, so he works blindly with subsequent data, so to speak. The price of this Additionally, the O.MG Keylogger Cable is $180, i.e. almost 4 thousand crowns in conversion.
