This Mission: Impossible-esque USB Dongle Explodes After Delivering a Malicious Payload

First off, we need to jump on the safety bandwagon here and tell you not to do this yourself—both because delivering a malicious payload is rude, and because we don’t want you to hurt yourself. Alright, disclaimer out of the way, let’s get to the fun stuff. This is a USB dongle that delivers a keystroke-injection attack, and then explodes when the attack has been completed.

A keystroke-injection attack, if you’re not familiar, is a simple way of attacking a computer by using a USB dongle that looks like a keyboard to the computer. Once it’s been plugged in, virtual keystrokes are sent to the computer to execute some sort of code, download and launch malware, or open a website. Because of its simplicity, the attack is actually pretty difficult to protect against.

MG’s version does just that, but adds a little extra flair. After the keystroke-injection is completed, a small explosive embedded in the USB dongle is triggered—destroying the evidence. For obvious reasons, MG doesn’t explain exactly how he built the self-destruct feature, but it’s not too hard to figure out (as a purely-hypothetical thought exercise, of course).