Month: September 2019

USB cable connecting to a USB port on a laptop computer.
Cyber Security

USB Can Be Dangerous

September 28, 2019 covertadmin Comments Off on USB Can Be Dangerous

The USB ports on your computer are dangerous! Did you know that? Maybe not – but let’s go through the potential threats in depth. USB ports have been around for a long time – and just about every computer has them. They can be used for a variety of devices – thumb drives or flash drives, keyboards, mice, web cams, and much, much more. The USB (or Universal Serial Bus) port was a big hit when first introduced. There’s a few reasons for that. The USB port is very versatile. It can provide power to devices – which is great for flash drives and small portable hard drives – or even a mini fan! They can transfer data signals. And they are part of a “bus” -which means they can pass on data from another USB device. USB is very friendly to computer users – but the original designers did not foresee how these devices might be abused by hackers and cyber criminals. USB – Power Surge The ability of a USB port to power small devices is very handy. [Read More…]

A handheld GPS receiver
Surveillance

GPS Spoofing

February 5, 2021 covertadmin Comments Off on GPS Spoofing

The Global Positioning System (or GPS) is a satellite navigation system that uses satellites to provide autonomous geo-spatial positioning. This technology is everywhere – it’s in your car, your smartphone, your watch, your fitness tracker, handheld GPS receivers, and more. But did you know that these satellite signals can be jammed – or even worse – deceived using something called GPS spoofing? Let’s take a look at this interesting topic of discussion. What we’re going to review here applies to any of the popular satnav systems – that includes GPS (the US satnav), Galileo GNSS (or Galileo Global Navigation Satellite System – the European version), and Russia’s GLONASS system. How does GPS work? There are multiple GPS satellites in orbit around the earth. Special chips can be included in nearly any electronic device that can read signals transmitted from the satellites. And combined with a bit of math – the device can determine your position with great accuracy as long as it can receive signals from at least 4 of the satellites overhead. Sound expensive? Yep – it is. (At [Read More…]