Dark Purple shows off USB-stick that will fry all gadgets dead
On the eve of the the new James Bond film's release, a Russian researcher has demonstrated a gadget worthy of Q: a USB stick that fries the circuitry any gadget it is plugged into by sending 220V through the signal lines of the USB interface, thereby killing all known gadgets 'dead'. To demonstrate the power of his death-stick (see video in attached article) the inventor kinfdly﻿ fries his own laptop. Dark Purple assures that he has no plans to market the device.

It can kill everything from your laptop to your TV.

Russian hackers have created a USB stick that can instantly fry any machine it is plugged into.

It sends 220 Volts through the signal lines of the USB interface, rendering anything it is plugging into useless.

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The USB stick can instantly fry any machine it is plugged into by sending 220 Volts through the signal lines of the USB interface.

The Russian security researcher known as 'Dark Purple' who created the stick has even posted a video of it in action - killing his laptop in the process.

The USB drive works instantly in the demonstration, causing the laptop to grind to a fault - and, he he says, blowing its circuitry in the process.

The researchers claims that 'he will live' and a new motherboard is on the way.

He thinks it is 'extremely unlikely' that the hard disk was damaged, and so it should still be possible to access the data stored on the drive.

He warns every device with a USB port is at risk.

'The device is able to incapacitate almost any equipment equipped with USB Host interface.

'For example, I have on the table an oscilloscope with a USB interface, almost all smart phones support USB mode, along with TVs, routers, modems, etc.'

Experts say the USB stick highlights the fact users should never plug unknown devices into their machine.

'USB Killer v2.0 - Yet another reason not to plug a USB stick of unknown origin into one of your computers, said Graham Cluley.

The device is the second generation 'killer thumbdrive' the researchers has created, although the first was lower powered, with only 110v.The researchers says he has no plans to sell or use the device, says it was 'like an atomic bomb: cool to have, but cannot be used'.

That's good news, of course, as the data you store on your computer's hard drive is probably more valuable to you or your business than the hardware itself.

It may also mean that computer criminals, political activists, journalists and whistleblowers, concerned that they might be at risk of having their computers seized, won't attempt to use this particular technique to keep their data out of other parties' hands.