If you find a flash drive at school or work what would you do? Plug it in or throw it away?
Most likely if you find a flash drive you will probably plug it into a computer to see what is on the device. Imagine if someone put a script that was automatically set to run when the flash drive was plugged in, sending your personal data to someone else. This is possible. Something that could be even more dangerous or life threatening is a USB killer device.
This little “flash drive” may look like an ordinary USB flash drive, but when it’s connected to a computer it supplies -220v back into the computers mainboard, rendering the computer useless.
Dark Purple, a Russian Security Researcher is the creator of this tool and he explains his creation on this blog (site is in Russian text, use Google Translate) A video is linked below with a test of the USB device.
Moss doesn’t mind his computer being on fire, but you should.
There are also multiple videos online of people creating their own DIY devices that recreate the same effect, but with worse outcomes, such as a computer fire:
Just keep in mind that you should be safe and cautious about plugging devices into your computer to avoid dangerous situations.
It could be said that devices like these won’t get their drivers verified by Microsoft…