Juice Jacking: Security Issues and Improvements in USB Technology

For a reliable and convenient system, it is essential to build a secure system that will be protected from outer attacks and also serve the purpose of keeping the inner data safe from intruders. A juice jacking is a popular and spreading cyber-attack that allows intruders to get inside the system through the web and theive potential data from the system. For peripheral communications, Universal Serial Bus (USB) is the most commonly used standard in 5G generation computer systems. USB is not only used for communication, but also to charge gadgets. However, the transferal of data between devices using USB is prone to various security threats. It is necessary to maintain the confidentiality and sensitivity of data on the bus line to maintain integrity. Therefore, in this paper, a juice jacking attack is analyzed, using the maximum possible means through which a system can be affected using USB. Ten different malware attacks are used for experimental purposes. Various machine learning and deep learning models are used to predict malware attacks. An extensive experimental analysis reveals that the deep learning model can efficiently recognize the juice jacking attack. Finally, various techniques are discussed that can either prevent or avoid juice jacking attacks.

The Cyber Crime of Juice Jacking in Developing Economies: Susceptibilities, Consequences and Control Measures

It is convenient and the norm to have both data and power cables (battery charge) integrated as a single Universal Serial Bus (USB) cable for today’s mobile devices. While the data component of the cables serves as the channels for data communication, the power channel charges the mobile devices through an adapter connected to an Alternating Current (A/C) socket or directly to a USB port. This convenient and seemingly harmless design could also serve as a medium through which malicious hacks are carried out on the connected mobile devices as studies and recent experimentations has shown. This hacking variant called Juice Jacking now serve as a potential avenue for mobile device exploitation, especially in developing economies where poor power grid infrastructures has allowed for indiscretions in charging devices from any available. This paper formulates a simple architecture for Juice Jacking cyber-crime, review prove-of-concept experimentation for Juice Jacking from available literatures, identifies significant threats and levels of impact of this cyber-crime on the community. It also highlights strategies that could mitigate juice jacking in developing economies.

Function Generator Based on Personal Computer

This paper aims to generate the various waveforms commonly used in a laboratory. A computer is used to synthesize the waveforms. It makes use of software to synthesize the waveforms digitally and a Universal Serial Bus (USB) to parallel converter to transmit the digital version of the waveform to a digital to analog converter where it is converted to produce an analog waveform. A buffer is used to display the analog signal on an oscilloscope. Direct Digital Synthesis (DDS) is used to generate these waveforms. MATLAB simulation software is used to perform the DDS, and PROTEUS software is used for circuit design of the digital to analog converter.

Sharing and storing digital cultural records in Central Australian Indigenous communities

This article considers how Indigenous peoples in Central Australia share and keep digital records of events and cultural knowledge in a period of rapid technological change. To date, research has focused upon the development of digital archives and platforms that reflect Indigenous epistemologies and incorporation of protocols governing access to information. Yet there is scant research on how individuals with little access to such media share and hold—or not, as the case may be—digital cultural information. After surveying current enabling infrastructures in Central Australia, we examine how materials are held and shared when people do not have easy access to databases and the Internet. We analyze examples of practices of sharing materials to draw out issues that arise in managing storage and circulation of cultural records via Universal Serial Bus (USB) flash drives, mobile phones, and other devices. We consider how the affordances of various platforms support, extend, and/or challenge Indigenous socialities and ontologies.

Liminoid media: On the enduring significance of USB portable flash drives

This article draws on the findings of in-depth interviews with consumers of portable storage devices in Melbourne, Australia, to explore the enduring significance of Universal Serial Bus (USB) portable flash drives. In the article, we develop the concept of ‘liminoid media’ as a way of coming to terms with continued use, and complications of use. Our understanding of this term is inspired by the seminal anthropological writings of Victor Turner ( pace Arnold van Gennep), more recent scholarship applying liminality to media studies and debates within media theory concerning the status of old and new media (where it has been argued, among other things, that media are always in transition rather than part of a strict old–new binary). Against this backdrop, we employ ‘liminoid media’ as a way of making critical sense of the ‘betwixt and between’ status of USB portable flash drives – their ongoing ‘suspendedness’ – and the complicated tensions that characterise participant use of these devices. For our participants, USBs are understood as fulfilling a compromise between emergent practices of cloud computing and more established forms of centralised data storage; they are understood as temporary data storage devices that are often used in semi-permanent ways to protect against data loss; they are seen as ephemeral devices that are rarely disposed of. USBs are also ‘ritualised’ insofar as they frequently become intimate, aestheticised everyday objects; yet, accompanying this ritualised ‘suspendedness’ are certain forms of risk and danger – of obsolescence, of data loss, of device failure, and so on. USBs, in short, occupy an essential if complicated position in people’s contemporary data storage practices. Examining USBs, and the practices of use that surround them, we argue, provides insight into current (and always ongoing) changes in the media environment, and demonstrates the extent to which liminoid media are contemporary in use.

Distributed Architecture to Enhance Systems Protection against Unauthorized Activity via USB Devices

Cyberattacks exploiting Universal Serial Bus (USB) interfaces may have a high impact on individual and corporate systems. The BadUSB is an attack where a USB device’s firmware is spoofed and, once mounted, allows attackers to execute a set of malicious actions in a target system. The countermeasures against this type of attack can be grouped into two strategies: phyiscal blocking of USB ports and software blocking. This paper proposes a distributed architecture that uses software blocking to enhance system protection against BadUSB attacks. This architecture is composed of multiple agents and external databases, and it is designed for personal or corporate computers using Microsoft Windows Operating System. When a USB device is connected, the agent inspects the device, provides filtered information about its functionality and presents a threat assessment to the user, based on all previous user choices stored in external databases. By providing valuable information to the user, and also threat assessments from multiple users, the proposed distributed architecture improves system protection.

Hydroxypropyl cellulose loaded with ZnO nanoparticles for enhancing the mechanical properties of papyrus (Cyperus papyrus L.) strips

Unfortunately, papyrus has not been sufficiently studied regarding improvement of the mechanical or optical properties, which degrade under the impact of aging factors over time. The aims of this research were studying the effects of hydroxypropylcellulose (HPC) loaded with 0.25% of ZnO nanoparticles (NP) at different concentrations (1% and 2%) on papyrus sheet properties before and after aging. Various analyses were used, such as visual assessment by a universal serial bus (USB) digital microscope, mechanical properties, Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) analysis, color change, and pH measurement. A dramatic increase in mechanical properties was observed after treatment. Besides, FTIR illustrated increasing of CH2 and OH stretching, which contribute to increasing the cellulose crystallinity index. There was no significant change in pH values after treatment or ageing. Slight changes of optical characteristics were observed for treated samples, after the artificial aging of the treated samples, the mechanical measurements showed that the values of tensile strength and elongation were close to the values of the standard sample, which may contribute to preventive protection of ZnO NP for treated samples from the artificial ageing.