Mike Grover is a security researcher, InfoSec expert, and the creator of the infamous O.MG Cable. He gained prominence in 2019 when he showcased his malicious USB cable prototype at DEF CON, capable of recording keystrokes and executing remote commands. Grover's O.MG Cable looks identical to a regular charging cable, but contains a tiny implant that creates a Wi-Fi hotspot, allowing attackers to access the connected device from up to 300 feet away. Since its inception, Grover has refined the O.MG Cable design, making it indistinguishable from normal USB cables and expanding its capabilities. The latest iteration includes features such as geofencing, self-destruct mechanisms, and support for various connector types including Lightning and USB-C. Grover's work aims to raise awareness about hardware security risks while providing tools for red teams and security researchers to test and improve organizational defenses. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://ROKA.com | Use Code SRS https://ExpressVPN.com/SRS https://ZipRecruiter.com/SRS https://RocketMoney.com/SRS https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/SRS https://ShawnLikesGold.com | 855-936-GOLD #goldcopartner https://americanfinancing.net/srs NMLS 182334, nmlsconsumeraccess.org. Call 866-781-8900 for details about credit costs and terms. Mike Grover Links: Website - https://o.mg.lol/ X - https://x.com/_MG_ LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/mgrover Please leave us a review on Apple & Spotify Podcasts. Vigilance Elite/Shawn Ryan Links: Website | Patreon | TikTok | Instagram | Download Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is the history behind the O.MG Cable?
And yeah, he reached out and wanted to kind of collaborate and have me build one for him. And I started on that process, but I didn't have enough time to complete it with his work constraints as well, because he didn't have time and stuff. And eventually what happened... Didn't know about it, but he went to someone else and said, make this for me. Oh, shit.
I didn't know about it until it came out. The thing is, it wasn't very good. I was just like, dude, first of all, this is not very good. This sucks. I wish I was making this a proper product at all. So I was like, hey, if you had the resources, I could have used that. Because I was just doing this on the side. But we have... you know, solved things since then.
You know, I think there's certain levels of communication and misunderstanding, so I don't want to be like, oh, he's the worst. But, you know, lessons learned as well of like, you know, if it's something you can turn into a product, maybe wait until it's ready. You know, things like that. Which is exactly what I did with the OMG cable, right? That's where it's like thousands of times better.
I mean, as enraging as I'm sure that was, it's also pretty flattering that, you know, is he really like the world's most renowned hacker?
I mean, well, so, RIP. He's no longer around. Oh, really? Yeah, exactly. But, yeah, the way he would be introduced, like, I don't know. But it was always the world's most famous hacker is the tagline that was used.
What made him so famous?
So, well, he, God, yeah. I need a refresher on this, but basically he had gotten the attention of the FBI, and they were hunting him down for getting into various places. A lot of social engineering tricks and stuff like that. And kind of a cat and mouse game. There's a movie called Takedown, right? So good movie. Check it out. But he went to prison then. and was pretty unfairly treated.
There was a whole free Kevin movement where they were doing, I think they put him in solitary or something because they thought he could whistle into the phones and launch ICBMs or some shit like that. Oh my gosh. This is like back when everybody was like, oh my God, hackers, just evil wizards. It's still like that today, but it was much worse back then. They had no idea what was even possible.
So yeah, he was held for much longer. I don't want to misspeak here because I don't remember the particulars, but he was held for a very long time, pretty unfairly, eventually got out, and then went into InfoSec as a profession using that.
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Chapter 2: How did Mike Grover get into hacking?
It looked like it was actively lit and you blow on it and like, you know, talc, I think powder came out, but it looked like smoke. That got confiscated. We got, friend and I got pulled down to the principal's office. I don't know. I think I got suspended for not taking the situation seriously enough. I'm like, I don't know. I don't even take this seriously. It's a fake cigarette.
But I think my friend pointed out, oh, yeah, that's right. They brought on the cops to test it because some of the talc powder came out. And they're like, that might be cocaine. And my friend made probably an unhelpful comment of like, that's not even how you would smoke cocaine. But, yeah, anyway. Sleight of hand.
That gets into deception and the human aspect, which is often forgotten a lot in hacking. People are like, oh, yeah, it's just knowing computers really well. Definitely a huge piece, but it's people as well that have to be manipulated. You got to understand them. You got to convince them to do things, which is the most common way of getting into so many systems.
Say, hey, like, I'm from your IT department, let me in. And you got to know how to make that sound legit. And, you know, if somebody is like, I don't know, like, okay, let's do some urgency to, like, make them kind of panic a little bit where their decision-making goes down.
And they're panicking and they're like, oh, I just got to do the thing or, you know, I might get fired or this bad thing is going to happen or, you know, there's so many different, like, psychological triggers that come into play and create this misdirection.
Interesting.
And you're like, oh, it's like, Sleight of hand for psychology, right? So you push people into different directions and you get them to reveal their password or run an application on their computer that gives you access to everything. And that overlaps with the technical and the hardware and all these other things.
I guess being a generalist, now that you make me think about it, it just allows you to kind of glue all of those things together. And I guess, yeah, at the time before I officially got into like paid security, I always thought that was a weakness of like, oh, I've never specialized in anything. I couldn't possibly keep up with people who did specialize. I mean, that is true.
Every person I work with that specializes, they go so far into just absolute wizardry that amazes me. And I can never keep up because I just cannot sit down and focus and be like, I'm going to do this thing and that's all I'm going to do. And I get 80% of there and I want to go play with another thing. But, yeah. It worked out. It's great for the entrepreneur type perspective as well.
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Chapter 3: What are common social engineering tricks used by hackers?
And some of the stuff that she has uncovered and broke on this show is just absolutely mind blowing. And so I've asked her if she would contribute to the newsletter and give us a weekly intelligence brief.
So it's gonna be all things terrorists, how terrorists are coming up through the southern border, how they're entering the country, how they're traveling, what these different terrorist organizations throughout the world are up to. And here's the best part, the newsletter is actually free. We're not gonna spam you. It's about one newsletter a week, maybe two if we release two shows.
The only other thing that's going to be in there besides the Intel brief is if we have a new product or something like that. But like I said, it's a free CIA intelligence brief. Sign up. Link's in the description or in the comments. We'll see you in the newsletter. Let's move into Defense Distributed.
Yeah, so I think this was about 2013. So first, Defense Distributed. It's the company behind the Liberator, which is a 3D-printed gun, and also the Ghost Gunner, which is a desktop mill. that you can mill out a lower receiver, AR-15 platforms was the first commonly.
You're the one that did that?
I did not, no. So I got very interested in that. That was done by Cody Wilson. So let's crack that whole topic open a little bit more. So I think it was 2013. There was a lot of experimentation in the 3D printing space with firearms, right? Cody introduced it to the world. He basically inflicted this idea upon the public psyche in this amazing way that just caught my attention in a couple ways.
First, it's this approach of like, hey, we're going to give this to the world in a way that is irrevocable. Like... Going back to that, like the police politics concept I was mentioning, it's just like, okay, what if you create something? Like there's voting and opinion having, but you create something and put it in the world. Nothing can change that at that point.
I just thought that was just amazing from like the political standpoint, regardless of what topic or what opinion you may or may not have on firearms, the politics of it and the power of creation was amazing to me. And he did it with a level of art and bravado that was just perfect for the delivery of this.
So what you're saying is bringing something to the world that cannot be taken back.
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Chapter 5: What are the ethical implications of hardware hacking?
A lot of places have strict controls. So with the USB rubber ducky, it does the keystroke injection. It looks like a thumb drive by Hack5. That's my business partner. They invented that 15 years ago-ish. what they would do is you could put like salaries.xls on it. So it's like, oh, that must be the company salaries and litter it in the parking lot, right?
That's one way that people would be convinced to pick it up in the parking lot, bring it inside, plug it in, see what's on it, right? And boom, they've just infected themselves with malware, right? There's a downside to that, which is depending on how bad that payload is, If you're a red team, you're an employee of this company, right?
You've got malware sitting on a loose object that anyone could pick up and bring it home, bring it into another business, and now you have just infected another business. That's not ideal, right? So certain environments, their legal team is like, no way. You put geofencing on this. You have a payload where it boots up and just says, am I in the office? Is the corporate Wi-Fi present? Cool.
If not, completely wipe everything.
Are you shitting me? Wow. Wow. So it knows where it's at.
Yep. And where it isn't.
Holy shit.
So this scan right here, this was done by LumaField. They've got a CT scanner, which is basically an x-ray scanner that takes a lot of x-rays, little slices across a product, and then assembles it into a 3D object. So LumaField, I actually just did some work with them to sit down and talk about their machines they use for all kinds of things.
manufacturing inspection but also starting to get into like security stuff like where you can literally see inside this is a scan of the end of one of my cables so right here is the connectors usb connectors and over here we got the components so this is the main processor and this little thing over here is the antenna you can kind of see the usb wires running out the bottom there wow and the cool thing is let's see if i can turn this there it is that is
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