Up until just a few years ago, unless you were working as a secret agent, your only chance of seeing spy tools and gadgets was in the movies. These days, it still isn't easy to buy a lipstick pistol or a Bulgarian umbrella, but it has become shockingly easy to legally buy hardware-based cyberattack tools.
Although IT security tools have quickly and significantly improved and threat-hunting teams of the leading enterprises have become more professional, cybercriminals aren't giving up.
Document leaks, such as the NSA ANT catalog and the US Central Intelligence Agency's Vault 7, released a huge hacking tool arsenal including concepts of operation, drawings, source code, etc., and allowed individuals and specialized companies to join the game. Hardware cyberattack tools that were in the hands of only governments and intelligence agencies are now available for purchase as legitimate penetration-testing tools starting at less than $10.
A recent example of a dangerous tool is the USB Ninja cable, which was introduced earlier this year. The Ninja cable looks like any ordinary and innocent smartphone-charging cable, and will charge a smartphone as usual. However, this cable's design and internals are inspired by the leaked NSA Cottonmouth, a USB hardware implant that provides a wireless bridge into a target network as well as the ability to load exploit software onto target PCs. (For information on the ..
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