Just saw a guy plug a malware infected USB into the work server at my local cafe

I was at this small cafe downtown last week working on my laptop, and some dude walks in with a 'lost USB' that he found outside. He just plugs it into the cafe's public terminal without a second thought. I literally watched the screen flicker and a weird popup appear before I said something. The barista had no clue and just shrugged when I warned them. Turns out the whole POS system was down for 2 hours after that. Has anyone else seen this kind of thing happen in public spots with shared computers?

2 comments

2 Comments

tyler3683d ago

Ngl that's rough. @oliver242 hasn't seen a bad one yet, trust me.

oliver2423d ago

Oh come on, is this really that big of a deal? I've plugged random USB drives into library computers before and never had anything worse than a sketchy popup that a quick reboot fixed. Plus, most public terminals have basic write protection or sandboxing these days, so a random USB from the street probably can't do much real damage. If the cafe's POS system was down for 2 hours, I'd bet it was more of a glitch or a slow internet connection rather than some master hacker USB attack. Seems like jumping to conclusions over a couple of flickers and a popup to me.