Pod Slurping Dangerous To Enterprises

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June 17, 2005 (3:43 PM EDT)

By TechWeb Technology News

Nearly a year ago, an analyst from Gartner recommended that enterprises should think about banning Apple's iPods -- and similar small-sized portable storage devices -- for fear of data walking out the door.

Now, with data being lost in more ways than once thought possible -- backup tapes lost by UPS, Social Security numbers sold to criminals, and hackers breaking in to networks remotely -- a researcher has demonstrated just how easy it is to walk off with megabytes of sensitive material when armed with only the ubiquitous iPod and simple software.

With more than 30 million iPods in circulation and models packing as much as 30GB of storage space, the gizmo makes a perfect tool for data theft, wrote computer security expert Abe Usher in his blog.

Dubbing the practice "pod slurping," Usher created a proof-of-concept application that runs from an iPod that, when the device is connected to a PC, will sniff through a PC's hard drive to find and copy all the Microsoft Office documents it finds.

"An unauthorized visitor shows up after work hours disguised as a janitor and carrying an iPod (or similar portable storage device)," posited Usher. "He walks from computer to computer and 'slurps' up all of the Microsoft Office files from each system.

"Within an hour he has acquired 20,000 files from over a dozen workstations. He returns home and uploads the files from his iPod to his PC. Using his handy desktop search program, he quickly finds the proprietary information that he was looking for."

The thief could even access PCs that require a log-in username/password by using a boot CD, a specially-crafted CD that sidesteps log-in authentication, said Usher.

Gartner's 2004 advice would block pod slurping, added Usher, if enterprises adopted the research firm's recommendations to lock down desktops by disabling USB functionality or Windows' Universal Plug and Play.