The USB dongle is a legit concern. Never plug anything into your computer if you don’t know where it came from.
Dropping compromised flash drives in places like parking garages is 100% a used tactic. It’s been used to gain access to government systems before.
Wasn’t this part of how the US took down the Iranian nuclear program?
Yes. Stuxnet
Tried the test at my last job, one week after my security talk. LOL, it took two days until someone picked it up off the floor and set it on the printer table. Surprised it didn’t come with a note, “Get bent Shalafi! We’re onto your games!”
Plugging in ethernet can absolutely be a risk.
If you tell your client to plug in ethernet before you have confirmed they’re running windows XP, you just ruined their PC.
There’s a reason experts hail the air gap as one of the best lines of defense against intrusion.
I doubt the people they’re referring to are running windows xp.
Also, iirc the windows xp thing only works without a router.
Back in the XP days, PCs were often jacked directly into the internet. Remember having to add a 3rd party firewall like Zone Alarm? :)
I was installing cable internet at the time, my customers out there straight raw dogging the internet.
Yeah, thats what I’m on about. I’m going to be honest, the windows firewall popups nowadays only serve to annoy me when I’m running a game, or testing a web app.
They weren’t behind NAT?
Because if so, this will almost certainly force connections from the internet to the example computer to be initiated by the computer. As they would still be behind the router.
LOL, no one had routers back then. Straight jacked in.
I made a couple of websites, someone at work told me my lemmy instance is chinese ai. Family members said they thought I was a scammer and still won’t even look at it. They’ll gladly hand over their info to Facebook and etc.
A while ago, a kid forwarded a message into a group chat I was in, which warned that one shouldn’t add a certain number to their contacts. If you did, then the criminals behind this number would be able to hack your phone or whatever. That one definitely hurt to read…