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| BusKill | |
|---|---|
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| Original author | Michael Altfield |
| Developer | BusKill Development Team |
| Initial release | August 2, 2020; 5 years ago (2020-08-02)[1] |
| Stable release | v0.7.0 / June 17, 2023; 2 years ago (2023-06-17) |
| Written in | Python |
| Operating system | Linux,macOS,Windows,Qubes OS[2] |
| Type | Anti-forensic |
| License | CC BY-SA,GPLv3[3] |
| Website |
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BusKill is a project that makes a physical cord intended to lock a computer when the user walks away.
It is anopen-source hardware andsoftware project that designs computerkill cords to protect theconfidentiality of the system's data from physicaltheft. The hardware designs are licensedCC BY-SA and the software is licensedGPLv3. BusKill cables are available commercially from the official website or through authorized distributors.
The first computer kill cord was built by Michael Altfield in 2017.[5][6]
The term "BusKill" was coined by Altfield in January 2020 when publishing the first BusKill build andudev usage instructions (Linux-only),[1][7][8] and it was ported by cyberkryption from Linux to Windows a couple weeks later.[9][10] The name BusKill is an amalgamation of "Bus" fromUSB and "Kill" from kill cord.[11]
The project's official website launched the following month in February 2020.[12]
The first macOS version of the BusKill app was released in May 2020[13] by Steven Johnson.
A cross-platform rewrite of the software based onKivy was released in August 2020 with support forLinux,macOS, andWindows.[14]
In December 2021,Alt Shift International OÜ ran a crowdfunding campaign to manufacture BusKill cables onCrowd Supply.[15][16][17] The campaign raised $18,507 by January 2022.[18]
The BusKill cable is a kill cord that physically tethers a user to their computer with a USB cable.[19][20]
One end of the cable plugs into a computer. The other end of the cable is acarabiner that attaches to the user.[21]
In the middle of the cable is a magnetic breakaway coupler, to allow the cable to be safely separated at any angle without physically damaging the computer or the user.[22][23]
A3D-printable hardware BusKill cable is currently under development.[24][25][26]
The BusKill project maintains a cross-platform GUI app that can eitherlock the screen orshutdown the computer when the cable's connection to the computer is severed and the app is in the "armed" state.[19][27][28]
If the computer is separated from the user, then a magnetic breakaway in the cable causes aUSB hotplug removal event to execute a trigger in the app.[29]
The trigger executed by the BusKill cable's removal can lock the screen, shutdown, or securely erase theLUKS header andmaster encryption keys within a few seconds of the cable's separation.[30][31][32]
If combined withfull disk encryption, then these triggers can be used to ensure theconfidentiality of data or be used as acounter-forensics device.
This post will introduce a simple udev rule and ~$20 in USB hardware that effectively implements a kill cord Dead Man Switch to trigger your machine to self-destruct in the event that you're kicked out of the helm position.
I decided to build this for myself actually in 2017, and then I published the article in 2020.
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