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That fake USB drive I bought off eBay nearly fried my whole workstation
I used to just plug in any thumb drive without a second thought, grabbing cheap ones from random sellers. Last Tuesday I got a 2TB drive for $12 and when I plugged it into my work laptop, it immediately started installing hidden malware. My IT guy told me it was a known scam where they gut cheap drives and replace them with malicious chips. Now I only use verified drives from authorized retailers and scan them with antivirus before opening anything. Has anyone else run into these fake drives with hidden payloads?
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ryan_gibson8419d ago
My buddy gave me a 128GB drive that looked legit but turned out to be a 4GB drive hacked to show fake capacity. I lost a weekend of work files before I figured it out. Now I test every new drive with a free tool called H2testw before I put anything important on it. It writes files to the whole drive and reads them back to check for fake space. Saved me twice already.
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daniel_lane3019d ago
$12 for 2TB should have been your first clue, not a bargain. Might as well have bought a flash drive from a guy in a trench coat in a parking lot. Hope your IT guy billed you extra for the headache, that's the real cost of 'saving' money.
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david3715d ago
His IT guy probably added a 50% "stupid tax" on top of the regular rate for having to explain why a $12 drive wasn't real. Did your buddy actually run H2testw on that fake 128GB before he gave it to you, or did he just assume it was good because it looked legit on the computer? Because that's the trap - the OS will REPORT whatever size the controller chip says, even if it's a lie inside.
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