USB-based attacks

Attackers increasingly take advantage of innocent users who tend to use USB peripherals casually, assuming these peripherals are benign when in fact they may carry an embedded malicious payload that can be used to launch attacks. In recent years, USB peripherals have become an attractive tool for launching cyber-attacks. In this survey, we review 29 different USB-based attacks and utilize our new taxonomy to classify them into four major categories. These attacks target both individuals and organizations; utilize widely used USB peripherals, such as keyboards, mice, flash drives, smartphones etc. For each attack, we address the objective it achieves and identify the associated and vulnerable USB peripherals and hardware.