USB Kill: A Device That Can Destroy Any USB-Connected Device

The following is a file containing information about the USB Kill device.

Kind: captions

Language: en-

This is USB Kill, and it is the most dangerous piece of tech that I own. Let me show you how it works. All right, I'm just going to plug this thing in, we're gonna go for it. Simple as that. Super, super duper dead.

So these may look like innocuous USB sticks, but inside they are filled with capacitors. So this is the V1 that we did a video on all the way back in 2017. The way this works is that it has a bunch of little capacitors so when you plug it in it charges those capacitors via power from the USB port, and then turns around and sends all that power directly back into the device, in many cases straight up killing it.

Now before you get any bright ideas about how this would be a hilarious prank to play on your friends, keep in mind that this can actually be illegal if you use it to destroy other people's technology. Someone tried this at a school, and killed a bunch of school computers. Guess what? He went to jail, and had to pay like a $50,000 fine.

The reason that a device like this exists is because there is no protection against this kind of thing. I mean, if you plug it into any USB port, it's going to kill the device connected to that port. It doesn't matter what the device is, whether it's a phone, a computer, or even a gaming console. The USB Kill can destroy them all.

I've tried this thing with various devices, and the results have been devastating. I started with a simple old laptop, but it didn't take long for the device to overheat and shut down. Next, I tried it with a newer gaming console, but even that was no match for the power of the USB Kill.

I've also tried it with other devices, including a charger, which also got destroyed by the USB Kill. The reason it works so well is because it can detect any signal on the USB port and then send that signal back into the device, effectively frying its circuitry.

This thing is ridiculously dangerous, and I'm not exaggerating when I say that it's going to hurt someone if you're not careful with it. So if you value your electronics, stay away from this device at all costs.

I know some of you may be thinking, "But why should we care about a device like this?" Well, let me tell you. This thing is for educational purposes only. I'm doing this to show people just how dangerous these devices can be. It's not something that should be taken lightly, and I'm not going to promote its use in any way.

In fact, I've decided to donate all of the money I spend on purchasing these devices back into the community. The more things like this die, the less danger they pose to people. So if you're interested in supporting a good cause, consider following me and my channel.

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- This is USB Kill,and it is the most dangerouspiece of tech that I own.Let me show you how it works.All right, I'm justgonna plug this thing in,we're gonna go for it.Simple as that.Super, super duper dead.So these may look likeinnocuous USB sticks,but inside they arefilled with capacitors.So this is the V1 that we did a video onall the way back in 2017.The way this works is that it hasa bunch of little capacitorsso when you plug it in itcharges those capacitorsvia power from the USB port,and then turns aroundand sends all that powerdirectly back into the device,in many cases straight up killing it.Now before you get any bright ideasabout how this would be a hilarious prankto play on your friends,keep in mind that this can actuallybe illegal if you use itto destroy other people's technology.Someone tried this at a school,and killed a bunch of school computers.Guess what?He went to jail,and had to pay like a $50,000 fine.Now the reason that adevice like this existsis purely for defensive purposes.So theoretically if you are a manufacturerof any number of devicesthat have a USB port,you would buy one ofthese things to make surethat whatever shielding you've done,whatever grounding you've done on your USBis actually sufficient to supportprotecting against a device like this.What I really wanna do isuse this newest versionof the USB Kill on anunfortunate number of devicesto see exactly how far we've comeover the last eight years with devicesthat have USB-C, that havetheoretically better shielding,and how many are going to succumbto the most basic lookingUSB stick you've ever seen.So while I hope that mostof these devices survive,I will be making a donationfor the value of any devices destroyedto The Electronic Frontier Foundation,which is a great organizationthat does a lot of workaround the internet,computers, devices.But if I can say anythingbefore I get started it is this.Do not try this at home.I am doing this testing sothat you do not have to.And hopefully this videoserves as a warningnot only to you who maybe want to bea little bit suspicious of your friendwalking around with that black USB stick.And for manufacturerswho watch this video,and hopefully decide to puta little bit more effortinto defending their devicesagainst such a simple basic attack.Let's give it a try, shall we?So our first proper testis going to be with aGateway Windows laptop.Now this is significantly newerthan the Chromebook that we just killed,and I will say that while Ihave low expectations to thisI'm gonna try somethingthat's a little bit differentcompared to the first generation USB Kill.The normal mode you plug it in,it charges capacitors and sends it back.Because this has a built in battery,theoretically I can just trigger it,and it would just send that powerin even to a completely offline device.So let's see what happens.Here goes nothing.So now that it is plugged inI'm going to trigger USB Kill.(USB Killer clicks)There it went.Hear it?All right, I'm gonna stop it.It will send power for aslong as I want via the app.So what you just heard, that click,that was all that power coming through,and likely blowingsomething on this system.So I'm gonna disconnect USB Kill,and I am going to try to fire this up.Nothing.Nothing at all.(cash register dings)I mean that's extra scary,if I'm honest with youbecause theoretically you couldcome back to your computerthat is completely dead,and have no idea what went wrong.There's no signs of anything.I smelt something for a split second,and now it's kind of gone.Okay, let's move on to some devicesthat hopefully are alittle bit more robustthan this very affordable Windows device.Yikes.Next up we have one ofthe most durable laptopsI have ever seen.I would hope that Dell have put inthe engineering resourcesto prevent against an attack like this,but just because it isphysically tough has no bearingon whether or not theyactually did the workto properly groundand shield USB ports.So let's give it a try.So I'm gonna use this in classic mode,which means that because the laptop is onit should kill it within two seconds,or Dell have done a goodjob of defending it.All right, here we go.(USB Killer clicks)Ooh.And that is dead.So that one was extra.I heard two cracks.It's almost like itpushed through one side,and then it went all theway through on the other.Wow.I mean I can try to getthis thing to boot up,but that looked...Oh no, hell no, dude.Extra fried.Wow.I thought this oneactually might have a shot.If you wanna see a followupvideo to this, let me know.I might actually try toopen some of these up,or find someone who can help meactually kind of get to the bottomof exactly what is dying on these systems.But, wow, that is one rugged laptopthat absolutely no match for the USB Kill.That is legitimately terrifying.Oh man, this video's gonnaget expensive real quick.I thought some of thesewere gonna survive.- It's for a good cause.- It is for a good cause.It's all for a good cause.The more things that diethe more money I'm gonna donate.But wow, that is okay.All right, well let'sjust keep it on rolling.So next I'm gonna do somethingthat's very unorthodox.I'm gonna try a USB-C charger.Now, general word of advice,don't trust USB sticks you find,and also don't trust random USB ports.But I wanna see what happenswhen we connect the USBq Kill to a charger.Can someone find the fire extinguisher?Why are you the firefighter?I don't like this.- Well, I like starting the fires.- No.Okay.Again, I will just giveyou a fair warning,do not try this at home,we are doing this purelyfor educational purposes,and I mean that.I wanna know what happens here.Hopefully nothing because there isa lot of electronicsin something like thiswhich is a little GaN charger,but let's find out.Okay.Three, two, one.Interesting.So what I assume is that ifit doesn't detect a signalit won't work by default.So I'm gonna try manuallytriggering this now.So I'm gonna plug it in again,and we're gonna send it.Ready?(USB Killer clicks)Okay, I heard a click.Nothing's on fire.So we're gonna unplug that.Now I guess let's pluga normal USB into this,and see if the charger still functions.Absolutely nothing.It killed the charger too.Oh my God.So that's the power ofthis latest USB Killbecause previously it only workedwhen you plugged itdirectly into a device,where it would take thepower and send it back.But because this canbe manually triggered,and there's also otherstuff I didn't get into.There's a little magnetic ringthat you can wipe over this thing.You can set programs.This thing is ridiculously dangerous.It has killed everysingle thing we've tried.Oh my God.This one, this one's gonna hurt.This is a Nintendo Switch Lite.As we all know, the bestversion of the Switch.I have modified this one.I did not do a great jobwith the modificationswhich is why it has been selectedfor this particular excursion.Boy, considering that we have killeda whole bunch of devices right now,my odds of a NintendoSwitch Lite survivingare incredibly low.So I'm gonna try it in regular mode,I think it should just work,but if not I will manually trigger it.All right, here we go.Switch Lite.Let's see what we got.- No.- That was the loudest snap.Oh my God.- That made me sad.- That made me sad too.I spent a lot of hours on this.I, maybe naively hoped,that some companies had actuallybuilt in some protectionsto try to help defendagainst this kind of stuff.I'm not seeing it at all.We have much moreexpensive items coming up.And now I'm like "Dothey even have a chance?"- If you thought that was bad,we're gonna have tosacrifice a flippy boy.- Oh God.This is the part of the videothat makes me deeply uncomfortable.This is a Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3.Now because the USB Kill 4 has beenabsolutely destroyingeverything we've got,I actually wanna try,before we do that one,to go with the original USB Kill.So in our first video,this one was very dangerous.It did actually not kill the USB-C devices.At least one of the USB-C devices survived.Here goes nothing.The USB Kill 1.0, let's give it a try.Oh, word.Yeah, totally fine, unaffected at all.Okay.Now let's try with USB Kill 4. (laughs)I'm not ready.My heart is pounding right now.Okay.USB Kill 4.Let's go.Three,(dramatic music)two,(dramatic music)one.(dramatic music)Okay.That is very promising.This is good.At least it won't automatically die.I'm gonna hit the button,I'm gonna see what happens.Everyone ready?Three, two, one.No.Oh, it restarted.It restarted.Oh my God.Yes, yes.- I love how you just threw it at me.Like get away from my Z Flip.You like hit me in the face.Jesus.- Wait, but wait, no.Wait, we might have...- Oh, oh.- It did start to boot up,and it now is not.Come on, come on, come onlittle Z Flip, you can do it.Oh my God.Okay, okay, okay.We're in here.So screen is functional.Okay, now let me try tosee if power works though'cause that would obviously bea massive, massive deal ifthe power no longer works.Plug it in.Oh my God.- Wow.- I am legitimately impressed.- Suck it Jerry Rig Everything.- Zach, we love you.- Not durable phone my ass.(everyone laughs)- Let's move on to a devicethat boy oh boy I hope survives,a PS5.Now, you might see this,and think "Austin, you lost your marbles."And to that I would say"Probably if this video"keeps going on for much longer."So for reference this is a PS5 1100.I highly doubt that there's any differencebetween the PS5 models,but just so you know PS5 1100.So let's plug it into this front USB port,and hope, cross yourfingers, cross your toes,cross your eyes.I don't know. (laughs)Three, two, one.- No.- Oh my God.This one hurts so much.I like to remind everyonethat I will be making asubstantial donation to the EFFafter this video.A much more substantialdonation than I thought.Let's give it a shot.Hold on, it might not be dead, dead.I'm gonna unplug it for a second.Let's see if we can get any signs of lifeout of this guy.All right, so let's plug it back in and...Oh, it's dead.It is dead.- Oh, oh, oh.(gentle music)- Okay, I see lights.No, it turned off.Okay, wait, hold on.But that was something.No other device hasgiven us a sign of lifeafter it completely died.Z Flip restarted,but this tried for a second.Hold on.It's probably mortally wounded.There are signs of life with this,but yikes.This is an iPhone SE,which is, of course, outfittedwith a Lightning port,which has traditionallybeen fairly resistantto these kind of attacks.And in our original video Apple productswere fairly durable, right?So my hope is that this will survive,but theoretically this device was designedspecially with Lightning in mind.Here goes nothing.Again, I'll show youit's fully functional.In fact, you know what we'll do,we'll do something real sad.We're gonna record front facing video.Okay, let's just really hopethat this does not work.I don't want this to work.Three, two, one.Ooh.Ooh, I heard a clickand it didn't do anything.Let me unplug it right now.Whoa, whoa, whoa.Oh, well...Well hang on.Wait, that's good, that's good.That's what happened with the Z Flip.It triggered and is restarting.This looks fine.Touch screen is functional.Let's see, is our video on there?Probably not.No, the video didn't save.That's fine.Let's just make sure thatit still accepts power.Oh wow, okay.So what we have here is astill functional device,but a Lightning portwhich no longer works.All right, so I'm gonna put this on,my Z Flip is a wireless charger.Let's see if it works.Okay, it does work.So the fact that we haveno longer any supportfor our Lightning port to function at allis probably gonna be avery expensive repair,and yes you can work aroundwith wireless charging,but that's still a pretty major downsidefor the device.But technically at leastit is not completely dead.So we'll give that a,not a thumb's down,a thumb's wiggle.A wiggle thumbs.So now we're down to MacBooks.Plural MacBooks unfortunately.This is 2011, I think.A 2011 15-inch MacBook Pro.So we're just gonna gostraight USB-A into it,and see what happens.I don't think this one's gonna make it.Plug it into our MacBook in three,two, one.(USB Killer clicks)Oh, okay.That's very good.Very, very good.So we heard the click, so it discharged.Now, does the system actually work?It does.So I'm gonna plug itinto a functioning portso you can see that thewhole keyboard lights up.So at least one of ourUSB ports still work.So I can go...That works.Now let me plug it into the portthat we just USB Killed.And nothing.Okay.So I'm not gonna givethat a complete pass,because that USB port is dead.But unlike something like an iPhone,in which if you kill theLightning port on an iPhoneit is not uselessbut in deep, deep trouble.A single dead USB port on a deviceis actually kind of somethingyou can work around, right?This has two USB-As.We'll give this a mostly pass.I will say Apple devicesand Samsung devices, the only onesthat have had any shot against this thing.Last but certainly not least,we're gonna try a brandnew M2 MacBook Air.You might ask, "Austin, thatdoesn't look very brand new."Well, it's a midnight one,so I touched it once,and it now looks like this.So there's a few things going for this.Not only is it a brand new device,but it's also using, of course USB-C,which we've seen is alittle bit more resilientacross the board.But certainly Apple's implementationbased on our last video was quite robust.The last one survived, right?It should be fine, right?Someone make me feel better right now.It should be fine, right?- Midnight?More like good night.- Ok.- Is that what you're looking for?- No, that's actually the oppositeof what I'm looking for but thank you.All right, let's plugthis in to a USB-C portin three, two, one.(USB Killer clicks)Okay.I'm gonna unplug it.Very good sign.MacBook is still functional.Okay.So at a bare, bare minimum it is gonna behopefully like the other MacBookin that maybe the port could be damaged,but the system didn't blink an eye.So we're gonna first startby plugging into a USBport that I did not use.Oh snap, no charge.Okay, let me try the other USB-C.Oh, that's bad.Both USB-C ports arenot accepting a charge.Now, I'm gonna try USB,but also before that I wannatry connecting via MagSafeto see if that workssince that is a physicallydifferent connector.Ready and...Ooh, that looks good.Ooh, no, it's not.So the MagSafe cable thinksthat the device is fully chargedand good to go,which seems normal,but here's the thing,the system says it isnot charging right now.So none of the USB-C portsor the MagSafe work.So even though on thesurface this is fine,this is no big deal,the MacBook's still working,it didn't skip a beat,but as soon as this runs out of chargeit's dead forever.So I'm gonna use a USB-C dongle.I'm gonna try with the keyboard.I'm also gonna try toplug it in a different wayand restart it.I wanna give this a fair shotbefore we totally call it dead,but wow.Wow.This video has been a roller coaster.Nothing.No.So there's no data to these ports either.So out of all the deviceswe've tested today,the winner,and the only one that survived unscathed,is a Z Flip 3?Who would have guessed that?Thank you very much forwatching this video.Do not try this at home.This has hopefully beenenlightening for youto understand that something as innocuousas a little USB stick thatyou find on the groundcould be incredibly, incredibly dangerous.And this is a plea tomanufacturers who watch this video,do you make a product that has a USB port?You should test it with the USB Killer,and do whatever you canto defend against it.I, of course, will bedonating a very large sumto the EFF to make upfor some of the devicesthat we have killed here.I gotta sit down after this one, man.This was the moststressful video I've shotin a long, long time.Whatever you do,don't trust the USB stick,it's not safe.