USG 1.0: A Tiny USB Firewall To Protect Your Computer From Malware.

Most of our digital lives are being affected by the spread of malware and infective files that gets spread across various sources. Whether it be through mails or downloads from unknown sources or from our own USB devices.

SBU devices are the most common source to spread malware and viruses across billions of machines. Infact it is very simple to infect a machine with USB drive.

Do you plugin your USB devices to your computer directly without scanning it for malicious files? Do you have the habit of using a single USB drive across various PC’s? Well then there are chances that your machine might have already been compromised by virus files.

Even though you use a firewall or antivirus most of these files go unnoticed because, USB scan is not enabled by default in many antivirus software and most of us ignore scanning a USB due to some urgency in opening the files stored inside it.

USG 1.0 – USB Firewall:

In this article we are going to tell you about a tiny little USB firewall device that will protect your computer from hacker attacks and malware.

The interesting thing about this device is that you can build one for yourself if you are good in electronics or DIY hobbyist.

What is USG 1.0:

The USG acts as a USB firewall for your USB ports. It connects between your computer and an untrusted USB device, isolating the evil code with an internal hardware firewall. It also protects you from any backdoors that has been secretly injected into USB drives.

USG

USG Working

How does this USB Firewall work?

Getting your hands on this device is very simple. All you need is to plugin this USG into your system while the untrusted USB device has to be plugged to other end of this stick. Once the suspected USB has been plugged in, it gets into action and starts scanning for BadUSB code, which is mostly hidden or go undetected by anti-virus software.

The USG contains two STM32F4 microprocessors communicating over a high-speed serial link. This internal link forms a firewall barrier that effectively blocks malicious USB commands from reaching your computer.

USG circuit board

Image: GitHub

It works with many peripherals like pendrives, external HDD, USB keyboards and mice. Version 1 of the USG uses 12Mbps hardware, and offers upto 1MByte per second transfer speeds. The thing to be noted is that it doesn’t act as a resistant physical over voltage attacks.

If you want to learn more details about USG: USB Firewall you can learn from here.

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How to build USG hardware USB Firewall:

This device is developed by Robert Fisk of New Zealand, and he released the details of project on GitHub. If you are an electronic geek you can start building one for yourself by carefully following the instructions on GitHub.

And for those who are not much into electronics can still secure your computer using this hardware firewall, by ordering it from Robert Fisk. It costs 60$ which doesn’t include shipping charges. You can contact the developer for more details.

Also if you want to fix a corrupted USB drive, you can follow this simple guide to recover it back.

What are your thoughts about this tiny little security device? Share your opinions through comments below.

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Ganesh Venigalla

Geek, Passionate, Nerd for Tech!

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USG 1.0: A Tiny USB Firewall To Protect Your Computer From Malware.

by Ganesh Venigalla time to read: 2 min
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