Cyber-criminals in Australia are banking on people's instinctive urge to plug in USB sticks, posting malware-infected memory sticks in mailboxes across Victoria. 

The devious ploy has now forced Victoria Police to issue a warning, saying "the USB drives are believed to be extremely harmful and members of the public are urged to avoid plugging them into their computers or other devices".

According to police, the USB sticks contain fraudulent media streaming service offers and other malware, Motherboard reported.

The masterminds behind this booby-trap ploy may well have read a recent study published by the University of Illinois, which found that at least 48 per cent of people will pick up a random USB stick, plug it into their computer and open files on it.

 

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.