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Comment on Ask HN: What stops a random USB device from rooting Windows?

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This is a well-known mode of attack and some anti-virus software have protections against it: https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/weaponized-usb-devices/26495/

5ESSOP

Too bad kaspersky has been banned/cancelled in my country (USA). Any alternatives? I don’t necessarily use antivirus, thought it was unnecessary with Windows 11 built in Security. But now my mind is changing… anyways There should be a open source tool for Windows that only allows only 1 trusted keyboard/mouse to input and monitors for anything sketchy in USB firmware. Seems easy enough to create.

The paid version of Windows Defender can do it: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/security/defe...

I found this which claims to block these attacks: https://www.gdatasoftware.com/antivirus-windows

USB Keyboard Guard
Protects you against manipulated USB devices that pretend to be keyboards, even though they look like USB sticks or external hard drives.

Still doesn't protect you from a wireless reply attack assuming no encryption in your device is present or hid spoofing. The safest scenario will be using encryption always even with cable keyboard/mouse and a pre-auth with a public/private key scheme like the one in android debugger bridge or TLS.

how can anti-virus protect against it?

it has no way of telling that that device isn't a logitech keyboard, and can't tell that it's not the user opening up elevated cmd.exe and accepting the prompt

From the linked article:

Kaspersky Endpoint Security's technology will not authorize any HIDs unless the user inputs a code using a HID already authorized to do so.
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