Google Releases Tool to Block USB Keystroke Injection Attacks

guest · Mar 12, 2020

Google Releases Tool to Block USB Keystroke Injection Attacks
...designed to identify potential USB keystroke injection attacks and block devices they originate from
March 12, 2020
https://www.securityweek.com/google-releases-tool-block-usb-keystroke-injection-attacks

With keystroke injection tools being easily availabile, they are able to send keystrokes immensely fast while being effectively invisible to the victim. Delivered over USB, keystroke injection attacks require a Human Interface Device Driver.

Meant for Linux systems, the tool announced by Google this week measures the timing of incoming keystrokes in an attempt to determine if this is an attack based on predefined heuristics, without the user being involved.

“The tool is not a silver bullet against USB-based attacks or keystroke injection attacks, since an attacker with access to a user’s machine (required for USB-based keystroke injection attacks) can do worse things if the machine is left unlocked,” Google explains.
“The tool can be complemented with other Linux tools, such as fine-grained udev rules or open source projects like USBGuard, to make successful attacks more challenging. [...]”
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Google: USB Keystroke Injection Protection

Choosing the RUN mode
The tool offers two different modes of operation: MONITOR and HARDENING. When running it in monitoring mode it won’t block a device that was classified as malicious, but will write a log line with information about the device to syslog. If it is run in hardening mode, it will immediately block a device that was classified as malicious/attacking. Out of the box, the tool is shipped in HARDENING mode.
Getting it up and running
The README on Github contains a step-by-step guide to prepare the tool, set it up and run it as a systemd daemon, that is enabled on reboot.
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